Friday, August 10, 2012

The Jacob H. Schiff Residence

The Jacob H. Schiff residence designed by Freeman & Thain c. 1901 at 965 Fifth Avenue in New York City.  Schiff was the senior member of the firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the most prominent Jewish banker of his day, playing a central role in Stephen Birmingham's book Our Crowd.  Schiff was the son-in-law of Solomon Loeb, a founder of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and the father of Mortimer Schiff and Frieda Schiff Warburg.  He died in the house in 1920 and the residence was demolished in 1938 and replaced with an apartment house by the same address.  Photo from the Museum of the City of New York.
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5 comments:

  1. The Down East DilettanteAugust 10, 2012 at 9:01 AM

    Just two fewer bulls eye dormers on the fifth floor.

    elegant design--can't make up it's mind which Louis inspired it---XIV, XV or XVI

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  2. AnonymousAugust 10, 2012 at 11:55 AM

    How will you space the remaining 3?

    -F

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  3. Tyler HughesAugust 10, 2012 at 6:49 PM

    A very attractive house, although I wonder why it survived 18 years after his death, it is a shame that it is gone.

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  4. The Down East DilettanteAugust 11, 2012 at 12:54 AM

    Flo,

    You challenge me---I'm stumped now that I try to work it out.

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  5. AnonymousAugust 11, 2012 at 12:01 PM

    I've taken them down to two, then back up to three, removed them all, removed their surrounds -- but nothing seems to calm the intrusion [ie the applied-not-integrated nature] of the mansard floor pediments. I get their formally intended duty in cap-off service below, yet my final resolution is to retain their relative positions, remove them from implied duty below, raise the three pediments into full size dormers, reduce the scale, set them back into the receding roofline, tuck an unframed/reframed orb into each of three now-pedimented dormers, send one of the virtual castoff framed dormers to DED, the other to Flo, and call it a day.

    -F

    ReplyDelete