More CH: The Imperial Apartments
The Imperial Apartments, 1198 Pacific Street. Architect: Montrose Morris. Erected on an imperial scale, with great paired Corinthian terra-cotta columns and arches along both Pacific Street and Bedford Avenue. Advertised in their time as “elegant and well conducted” and “in the fashionable part of Bedford,” the immense apartments have since been subdivided. It has many…
The Imperial Apartments, 1198 Pacific Street. Architect: Montrose Morris.
Erected on an imperial scale, with great paired Corinthian terra-cotta columns and arches along both Pacific Street and Bedford Avenue. Advertised in their time as “elegant and well conducted” and “in the fashionable part of Bedford,” the immense apartments have since been subdivided. It has many similarities with Morris’ Alhambra Apartments on Nonstrand Avenue.
–AIA Guide to New York CIty, p. 742
Reminds mea bit in scale of the great building on the corner of Atlantic and (I think) Washington Avenues with the gargoyles.
Yes, it’s great to see it come back to life. It is almost a twin of Morris’s Renaissance apartment building on Nostrand at Hancock, a block north of the Alhambra. A lavish example of Roman bricks, a costly material at the time.
The new owner is just finishing up an extensive renovation. Unfortunately, the huge apartments are gone, and so is much of the interior detail, but much care has been taken with the exterior detail. All of the original copper sheathing was replaced, and is now getting a wonderful patina to it. They replaced the massive front door, and the building looks wonderful.
When the Imperial was built, it had the largest private apartments in the city, those old 10 plus room apartments with all of the bells and whistles that hardly exist anymore. They were subdivided years and years ago, and the building deteriorated until it was closed and boarded up until the present owner bought it.
I don’t know if it is subsidized or market rate, coop or rental now. I’m just glad a landmarked beauty is being brought back to life, and needed housing is being brought back on board.