Most large apartment-houses are so constructed that there are more storeys in the rear of the building than upon the front, the additional storeys being accessible by steps from the principal floors, and so arranged that, while some of the apartment-suites are in communication with only one of the rear storeys, others are in communication with two.
Red brick and red terra-cotta are the materials most commonly em ployed in these tall piles, but the two or three lowest storeys are often of stone, while copper or iron is introduced in the bay-windows. Their varied materials give a chance for polychromatic display, and much of the effect depends upon the color-sense of the designer. Among the most noticeable New York City apartment-houses are the Berkshire and the Navarro group.
The Berkshire (pl. 66, fic. I) has nine floors above the basement, which is well above ground. The two lower floors are of gray granite with tooled edges, relieved by dressings of red stone; the upper floors, of red brick, with some red-stone dressings. On each front projects a copper elliptical bay five storeys in height, while a three-sided bay of the same material also exists on the north front. On the east front the place of this latter bay is taken by an effective series of balconies and brack ets, the railing iron, the rest stone. Upon the upper floors and over the surface of the brick gables or large dormers there is a network of brick pilasters parted by moulded string-courses. The general appearance of this building is good: there is just enough asymmetry to break the monot ony of regularity. Those who make the term " Oueen Anne " cover things undreamed of in Oueen Anne's century may claim this structure, but it conies far nearer to Flemish Renaissance, though with features that can be found only in modern work.
The Central-Park Apartment-houses are probably the most extensive structures of the kind in the world; they include several huge fireproof buildings, and are said to have cost upward of seven million dollars. In style these " Navarro " flats, as they are usually called, are intended to be Moorish. The arches of the loggias are of horseshoe shape, the capitals of the columns are decidedly Saracenic, and other details smack of the style; yet the general effect is that of a Renaissance building rather freely treated. The succession of superimposed horizontal lines and the numer ous series of windows necessary in a lofty apartment-house will not permit such a structure to assume any resemblance to the comparatively low, spreading, dome-covered buildings erected by the Moors and Arabs.
Eight series of loggias—one at each end and three on each side—separate as many distinct structures and admit an abundance of air to the interior court, which, large though it is, seems narrow on account of the great height of the buildings around it. At each angle there is a circular tur ret, while between these the roof-line is broken by gabled dormers of brick which leave little of the roof to be seen. Most of the windows have square heads, but those of the upper floor are semicircular, and near the angles are groups of windows under relieving-arches. There is much variety in the plan, some of the dwellings occupying the whole of a floor of one of the separate blocks, while in others there are two dwellings upon a floor.
The Osborne, consisting of eleven storeys, is considerably higher than the Navarro, and is probably the loftiest of New York's great apartment houses. It is a stone structure throughout, brownstone in courses, the rock-face showing from top to bottom. The Dakota is of white brick with out any attempt at polychromy, and it must be confessed, huge though it is, that it looks tame compared with such a building as the Berkshire or the Navarro. The Dakota is said to be one of the most complete—as it certainly is one of the largest—structures of this class. The Chelsea is one of the finest of these habitations. It is of red brick, and presents to the street seven tiers of balconies.
ground became more valuable and rents increased, the private house became narrower and cheaper, until—in some cities, at least—it gave way to the flat or tenement-house. Unfortunately, the old division of the ground into lots of 25 feet in width has hampered the flat as it hampered the private house, and it is only in first-class apartment-houses—that is, houses built to accommodate families of abundant means—that such width is occupied by the entire structure as to permit all the rooms to be well lighted and ventilated, and to give room for ample staircases and halls. In New York four families are usu ally compelled to occupy each floor of a tenement-house constructed upon a lot 25 feet wide and ioo feet deep. The entire space is built upon, with the exception of that of the narrow shafts which are supposed to give ventilation to the water-closets, and at the same time are too often made to do duty as light-wells for some of the rooms, though this is now forbidden.