Pomander Walk
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{Infobox NRHP
| name = Pomander Walk
| nrhp_type = hd
| image = Pomander Walk.jpg
| image_size = 300px
| caption = Pomander Walk, facing north. The Columbia (275 West 96th Street) is visible in the background
| location = {{plainlist|
- 3–22 Pomander Walk
- 261–267 West 94th Street
- 260–274 West 95th Street
}} west of Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York{{cite web|url=https://cris.parks.ny.gov/Uploads/ViewDoc.aspx?mode=A&id=28479&q=false| title = National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form: Pomander Walk|author=Virginia Kurshan|access-date = June 15, 2015|format = PDF|date=June 1983 |publisher=New York State Cultural Resource Information System}} [https://cris.parks.ny.gov/Uploads/ViewDoc.aspx?mode=A&id=28479&q=false 11 Photos (1983)]
| coordinates =
| district_map = {{Maplink|frame=yes|plain=yes|frame-align=center|frame-width=250|frame-height=250|zoom=14|type=point|marker=|title=Pomander Walk}}
| area =
| built = 1921
| architect = King and Campbell
| designated_nrhp_type =
| added = September 14, 1982
| visitation_num =
| visitation_year =
| refnum = 83001739{{NRISref|version=2010a}}
| mpsub =
| designated_other1 = New York State Register of Historic Places
| designated_other1_date = August 10, 1983{{cite web | title=Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS) | publisher=New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation | date=November 7, 2014 | url=https://cris.parks.ny.gov/ | access-date=July 20, 2023}}
| designated_other1_number = 06101.004559
| designated_other1_abbr = NYSRHP
| designated_other1_num_position = bottom
| designated_other2_name = New York City Landmark
| designated_other2_date = September 11, 1979
| designated_other2_abbr = NYCL
| designated_other2_link = New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
| designated_other2_number = 1279
| designated_other2_color = #ffe978
}}
{{Coord|40|47|37|N|73|58|23|W|type:city_region:US-NY|display=title}}Pomander Walk is a cooperative apartment complex in Manhattan, New York City, located on the Upper West Side between Broadway and West End Avenue. The complex consists of 27 buildings. Four buildings face West 94th Street, and another seven face West 95th Street, including one with a return facade on West End Avenue. The "Walk" itself, consisting of two rows of eight buildings facing each other across a narrow courtyard, runs through the middle of the block between 94th and 95th, with a locked gate at each end. Each building originally had one apartment on each floor. In recent years, some buildings have been reconfigured to serve as single-family homes.
Pomander Walk is different in style and out of scale with the tall buildings that surround it. Author and former resident Darryl Pinckney called it "an insertion of incredible whimsy" into the Upper West Side.{{cite book |last1=Silvers |first1=Robert B. |last2=Epstein |first2=Barbara |title=The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships |year=2006 |publisher=New York Review Books |location=New York |isbn=1-59017-203-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/companytheykeptw00robe/page/135 135] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/companytheykeptw00robe/page/135 }} It is not open to the public and visit is by invitation only.
History
File:Pomander-Walk-Postcard.jpg
The complex is named for Pomander Walk, a romantic comedy by Louis N. Parker that opened in New York in 1910.{{cite web|publisher=Internet Broadway Database|url=http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=7257|title=Pomander Walk}}{{cite news |title=New York to have a 'Pomander Walk': Street of Little Houses, Lawns, Flowers and Fountains in Shadow of Broadway |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C03E0DD113FEE3ABC4152DFB266838A639EDE |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 19, 1921 |access-date=January 15, 2012}} The play is set on an imaginary byway near London. The place as built bears a tenuous resemblance to the setting described in the play as "a retired crescent of five very small, old-fashioned houses near Chiswick, on the river-bank. ... They are exactly alike: miniature copies of Queen Anne mansions".{{cite book|title=Pomander Walk|last=Parker|first=Louis N.|page=[https://archive.org/details/pomanderwalkcome00parkuoft/page/13 13]|url=https://archive.org/details/pomanderwalkcome00parkuoft |quote=retired crescent.|year=1915|publisher=Samuel French}}
New York City's Pomander Walk is Tudoresque, a style that enjoyed a vogue in America in the years following World War I.
The Walk is not a mews, though often so-called, having no history as a stables. The buildings may fairly be described as Storybook Houses, an architectural trend of the 1920s in England and the United States.
Pomander Walk was built in 1921 by nightclub impresario Thomas J. Healy who planned to build a major hotel on the site. According to historian Christopher Gray, when Healy was unable to get financing for a hotel, he built the houses that stand on the site today, apparently to provide a temporary cash-flow while he waited to raze them and build the hotel.{{cite news |title=Pomander Walk, on the Upper West Side; A Tiny Street Where Interim Became Permanent |first=Christopher |last=Gray |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/16/realestate/streetscapes-pomander-walk-upper-west-side-tiny-street-where-interim-became.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 16, 2000 |access-date=January 15, 2012}} It was designed by the New York architecture firm King and Campbell.{{cite book |last=Plunz |first=Richard |title=A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis |year=1990 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-231-06296-6 |page=135}} Healy died in 1927, however, so Pomander Walk remained.{{Cite web|title = A Secret World on the Upper West Side: A Trip Down Pomander Walk|url = http://www.scoutingny.com/a-secret-world-on-the-upper-west-side-a-trip-down-pomander-walk/|website = Scouting NY|access-date = January 22, 2016|language = en-US}}
By the 1970s, the complex was rundown and at risk of being demolished. However, it was saved with a City, State, and National Historic Landmark designation in 1982 {{cite web|url=http://www.landmarkwest.org/maps_and_data/Pomander%20Walk.htm|title=Pomander Walk|work=Landmark West!|access-date=February 11, 2013}} Includes designation report (City) and notification letter (State and National). after tenants banded together to block redevelopment.{{cite web|last=Jaffe|first=Eric|title=Downton Abbey on the Upper West Side|url=http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/02/downton-abbey-upper-west-side/4713/|work=The Atlantic Cities|publisher=Atlantic Media Company|access-date=February 15, 2013}} An earlier application for City Landmark status had been rejected in 1966.{{cite book|title=The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs|last=Gratz|first=Roberta Brandes|page=53|year=2010|publisher=Nation Books|isbn=9781568586465|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cvMxB4YdswgC&pg=PA53}}
In 2009 the owners completed a four-year facade renovation, restoring architectural details that had been lost for decades. In 2008 Landmark West! bestowed their Building Rehabilitation Award on Pomander Walk.{{cite web|url=http://www.landmarkwest.org/events/Heroes2009_past%20awardees.html|work=Landmark West!|title=Unsung heroes of the Upper West Side|access-date=February 11, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906163411/http://landmarkwest.org/events/Heroes2009_past%20awardees.html|archive-date=September 6, 2013|url-status=dead}}
Past residents of Pomander Walk include Nancy Carroll, Ward Morehouse, Herbert Stothart, Paulette Goddard, Michael Sorkin and Rosalind Russell.
In popular culture
The protagonist of This Time Tomorrow, a 2022 novel by Emma Straub, grew up living on Pomander Walk.{{cite web | title=In 'This Time Tomorrow,' Emma Straub looks at the pieces that make a life | website=NPR | last=McAlpin | first=Heller | date=May 17, 2022 | url=https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099085795/in-this-time-tomorrow-emma-straub-looks-at-the-pieces-that-make-a-life | access-date=September 9, 2023}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Commons category inline|Pomander Walk}}
{{Upper West Side}}
{{Manhattan}}
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York}}
Category:Historic districts in Manhattan
Category:Neighborhoods in Manhattan
Category:New York City designated historic districts
Category:New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan
Category:New York State Register of Historic Places in New York County
Category:Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan