Landmarks Preservation Commission January 5, 1993; Designation List 248 LP-1842 WASHINGTON APARTMENTS 2034-2040 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard, Borough of Manhattan. Built 1883-84; architect Mortimer C. Merritt. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 1927, Lot 33. On July 15, 1991, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Washington Apartments and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 9). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. Eight speakers were in favor of the designation of this and the other items on the calendar at the hearing but urged the Commission to continue its work in Harlem. Numerous letters have been received expressing the same sentiments. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS Summary The Washington Apartments, built in 1883-84 for the speculative developer Edward H.M. Just, was the earliest apartment building constructed in central Harlem. This eight-story brick building, with stone, iron, terra-cotta and pressed brick trim, was designed by the talented and productive architect Mortimer C. Merritt in the popular Queen Anne style, incorporating neo­ Grec details. Merritt created a lively and picturesque composition using contrasting materials, and provided textural interest through the use of projecting balconies and cornices, a prominent overscaled frontispiece, and numerous decorative panels. The extension of the elevated transit lines, which by 1881 connected lower Manhattan to 129th Street, served as an impetus to the development of this area, previously the location of small farms and shantytowns. The amount of real estate speculation and new construction which occurred in Harlem from the 1880s through 1904 was unmatched in New York's history. Harlem was transformed from a rocky and marshy backwoods to a premier middle-class neighborhood. The Washington Apartments was built at the start of this tide of development, when much of the nearby construction took the form of single-family rowhouses and occasional small flats. Throughout New York, multi­ family living arrangements were just gaining acceptance among the middle and upper classes. A large apartment house such as the Washington, was quite conspicuous amid rows and rows of brownstone-fronted rowhouses. Not only does the building retain its distinctive presence in the Harlem community, it is also one of the few surviving apartment houses of the early 1880s in New York City. Development of Harlem' neighorhood and boasted elegant horn~ su;h as t~e That part of New York known as Harlem King Model Houses, later known as Stnvers Row (m embraces generally the area of Manhattan north of the St. Nicholas Historic District, West 138th and llOth Street. The original village of Harlem was 139th Streets) and Astor Row, 8-62 West 13~th established in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant and named Street (1880-83, all designated New York City Nieuw Haarlem after the Dutch city of Haarlem. Landmarks), as well as luxurious apartments with the Rich farms were located on the region's flat, eastern most modem amenities such as the Graham Court portion, while some of New York's most illustrious Apartments, 1923-1937 Adam Clayton Powell, !r. early families, such as the_ Delancers, _Bleekers, Boulevard (1899-1901, a designated New York City Rikers Beekmans, and Hamdtons, mamtamed large Landmark). More modest housing was built as well. estates' in the western half of the area, enjoying the The area also contained the popular Polo Grounds and the distinguished Harlem Opera House on West magnificent views proffe~ed by Harl~m Heights. Several small villages and isolated shanties were also 125th Street. Some speculators made tremendous scattered throughout the area, helping Harlem retain profits by buying and reselling land and ~y its rural character beyond the middle of the developing properties, including Oscar Hammerstem nineteenth century. I, Henry Morgenthau, and August Belmont. Harlem's stability was shaken in the 1830s. The lush farmland became depleted, worn out from Development of the Washington Apartments decades of cultivation. Many farms were abandoned The land on which the Washington Apartments and the great estates were sold at public auction. The was constructed was typical of Harlem real estate just area became the refuge of those desiring cheap ripe for development. Until 1851, the property was property and housing, including many ne:wly-arrived held by members of the Benson family, descendan_ts and destitute immigrants who gathered m scattered of Captain Johannes Benson who settled there m shantytowns. However, most of the scenic 1696.2 Samson Adolphus Benson sold a large tract topography was left untouched and the strikin? vistas (including this property) to John Bruce, a well-to-do and unspoiled country attracted fashionable Brooklyn resident and hardware dealer in New York. downtowners on picnics and day trips, particularly Bruce was clearly interested in the investment after the 1860s. possibilities as he subdivided the land and sold off It was the advent of new and better forms of lots to numerous buyers. This property was held transportation, as well as the rapidly increasing briefly by a succession of owners, without population of New York which_ brought abo~t the development, until Harlem began to blossom. change in Harlem from a rural village (population at Edward H. W. Just (d.1893), the developer of mid-century of approximately 1500) to a fashionable the Washington Apartments, was one of the middle- and upper-class neighborhood. As ~h~ speculators who profited from the tre~endo~s early population of New York City swelled after the ClVll Harlem building boom. 3 Born m Etsleben, War, mounting pressures for housing pushed the Germany, Just arrived in New York in the 1830s. development of neighborhoods further northward He and his brother John (and later his nephew Carl) until in 1873 Harlem was annexed to New York were the owners of the Just Brothers Fine Shirt City: Although the New York & Harlem Railroad manufacturing company, which had stores in the had run trains from lower Manhattan to Harlem fashionable Ladies' Mile area during the 1880s and beginning in 1837, service was poor and unreliable, into the 1890s.4 Edward Just invested heavily in and the trip was long. The real impetus f~r new Harlem property, turning his attention to real estate residential development in this area came with the full time shortly before his death in 1893. He left an arrival of three lines of elevated railroads which, by estate valued at more than $2 million.5 1881, ran as far north as 129th Street. The site of the Washington Apartments, at Between the 1870s and 1910 Harlem was the site Seventh Avenue (Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. of a massive wave of speculative development which Boulevard) and 122nd Street, was near the newly resulted in the construction of record numbers of new expanded elevated railroad line, although l?revious to single-family rowhouses, tenements, and luxury 1883, nothing had been constructed on this block or apartment houses. Almost all _the ho~ses which s_tand those immediately surrounding it. An 1880 map of in Harlem today were bmlt durmg that time. the area of central Harlem (Fifth to Eighth Avenues Commercial concerns and religious, educational, and from 124th Street to 131st Street), shows several cultural institutions were established to serve the rows of brownstone-fronted, single-family rowhouses expanding population. Electricity came to Harlem in as well as many older, wood-framed houses. The 1887 and the telephone arrived the following year. only large buildings were a few churches and a The west half of Harlem, although developed slightly grammar school. The section of central Harlem just later, became a prosperous and fashionable 2 to the south, from 1l7th to 124th Streets, shows very typical of tenements. They were often built with little construction of any kind, with nothing at all wider street frontages than the standard twenty-five south of 123rd Street. 6 An 1884 map of the same foot wide city lot, and by about 1875 could rise eight area (Fifth to Eighth Avenues, from 117th to 124th to ten stories in height with the inclusion of a Streets) shows several rows of individual houses on passenger elevator, a relatively recent innovation. 123rd and 124th Streets, as well as the elegant houses Within ten years of the construction of the precedent­ lining Mount Morris Park. The Washington is the setting Stuyvesant Apartments (Richard Morris Hunt, only large apartment house in this section. The 1869-70, 142 East 18th Street), several hundred section from 124th to 131st Streets was much more expensive "flats" geared to the middle and upper heavily built up by 1884, with many rows of classes had been constructed in New York, with masonry-fronted rowhouses, several slightly larger ninety more built in the five years from 1880 to flat houses, several churches, stables and a grammar 1885. The eight-story Washington Apartments, an school. Two small, walk-up apartment houses (the elevator building with a frontage of 101 feet on Beverly and the Eisleben, also a Just property) of Seventh A venue and an estimated construction cost of three and four stories, respectively, are also shown, $200,000, was among this group. 11 Today, only a opposite each other at the intersection of Sixth few of these early flats buildings are still extant, such Avenue and 125th Street. 7 as the Manhattan (244 East 86th Street, 1879-80) and Edward Just was concerned about providing solid the Windemere Apartments (400-406 West 57th middle-class housing in Harlem and was an advocate Street, 1880-81).12 of the large apartment house, a building type which in 1883 had only recently begun to gain popularity Mortimer C.