West 67th Street Artists' Colony

The opulent Hotel des Artistes sits grandly at One West 67th Street, a gateway to the magnificent grouping of eight buildings on West 67th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

LANDMARK WEST! is honored to have Prof. Andrew Dolkart - the preservation historian who wrote the national designation report on all of these buildings - lead us along the West 67th Street Artists' Colony Historic District in this exclusive online Zoom program bursting with rare historic photos and fascinating details. 

What became an enclave of eight buildings began with one: #27 W. 67th. Landscape painter Henry W. Ranger, frustrated at paying for both a living space and separate painting studio, designed a new building and a new concept in 1900: a studio building with double-height north-facing windows and duplex living areas for artists. Artists pooled their resources to finance the building and it became one of the earliest models of co-op ownership. Eventually, seven apartment houses and one institution (Swiss House) were built between 1901 and 1929, creating the elegant, cohesive streetscape we still enjoy today as part of the landmark protected Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic District. 

From the painted murals of Poetica, Pictura and Musica in the lobby of Central Park Studios to the Tiffany lamp illuminating the entry to Sixty-Seventh Street Studios to the 30-inch thick soundproof walls of the Musician's building and the neo-Gothic façade of the Hotel des Artistes, this is an undeniably spectacular collection of buildings. 

We invite you to share in this one-evening-only architectural journey exploring one of the most significant concentrations of artists' studio apartment buildings in Manhattan. Please join us!

Speaker Andrew Scott Dolkart is a professor of Historic Preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and the former Director of the school's Historic Preservation Program. Professor Dolkart is an authority on the preservation of historically significant architecture and an expert in the architecture and development of New York City. He was described as someone who is "without peer among New York's architectural researchers" by architectural critic Francis Morrone and he has written extensively on this topic.  He is the author of, among other works, The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908–1929 and Guide To New York City Landmarks.  Before joining the faculty at Columbia he held a position at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and worked as a consultant. Prof. Dolkart holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University and a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University.