The Osborne

205 West 57th Street

Architect: James E. Ware

Builder: Thomas Osborne
John Taylor

Built: 1885

Addition: 1910

Architect: Taylor and Levi

Builder: Taylor, Freeman and Ely

Due to its proximity to Carnegie Hall and its solid, sound-resistive construction, The Osborne has long housed musicians and others in the arts in a heavily rusticated Renaissance palazzo style. The building was begun by Thomas Osborne, a stone contractor, and was completed by John Taylor, a hotel operator, after Osborne went bankrupt. The interiors are ponderously lavish, with extensive mahogany woodwork, bronze mantels, crystal chandeliers and elaborate parquet flooring. The entrance lobby, ornately decorated in marble and stone, includes mosaic-encrusted walls, bronze bas-relief sculpture panels and two sweeping staircases. The front section of the building contains the major rooms of each apartment, with 15-foot ceilings. The service and sleeping rooms in the back have 8-foot ceilings providing semi-duplex apartments. In 1910 a narrow extension was placed on the building (so skillfully that it is virtually indistinguishable from the original building) containing additional bedrooms for the extreme westerly apartments. The plan shown below is from that period. In more recent years many of the apartments have been subdivided, the entrance portico removed and the first floor converted to stores. One of them, The Grenoble Market, is a remnant of a contemporary hotel of that name which formerly stood across the street from The Osborne.