New York’s Osborne Apartment House of 1885
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
Product details
- ISBN 9780789215376
- Dimensions: 251 x 279mm
- Publication Date: 14 Dec 2026
- Publisher: Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S.
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
A sumptuously illustrated book exploring every nook and cranny of this legendary New York apartment house—its distinguished architecture, its extravagant decoration, its tumultuous history, and its storied tenants.
The Osborne, at 205 West 57th Street, was one of New York’s first luxury apartment houses; along with peers like the Dakota, it helped to popularise the idea of apartment living among New York’s affluent classes. A monument to the Gilded Age, the Osborne features a rusticated brownstone facade with both Romanesque and Renaissance motifs, and a foyer and lobby elaborately adorned with marble, mosaics, murals, gilding, and stained glass. Although many of its grand apartments were gradually subdivided, the Osborne has always remained a habitat for the interesting and influential, including many habitués of across-the-street neighbour Carnegie Hall, such as Leonard Bernstein and Van Cliburn.
In this handsome volume, Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch, a longtime resident and the leading authority on the Osborne, traces every stage of the building’s history—from the tangled tale of its financing and construction to its present status as a proud 19th-century survivor on Billionaires’ Row—profiling its most colourful tenants along the way. Original colour photography and archival illustrations bring the Osborne’s apartments and public spaces to vivid life, and a study of the building’s stained glass by noted expert Julie L. Sloan clarifies the respective contributions of the John La Farge and Tiffany studios.
Davida Tenenbaum Deutsch, an independent scholar and former book editor, is a longtime resident of the Osborne and the leading authority on its history. She was instrumental in the historical landmarking of the building and the restoration of its lobby. Deutsch is currently completing The Polite Lady: or, A Course of Female Education, a study of American women’s education as embodied in crafts such as needlework and japanning. Julie L. Sloan is a well-known expert on the history and conservation of American stained glass. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the subject, and has overseen the restoration of windows at Harvard’s Memorial Hall, Trinity Church in Boston, and St. Thomas Church in New York, among many others.
