“ONE shot” just doesn’t do justice to the Noonan Plaza Apartments in hilly Highbridge Heights. Noonan Plaza, West 168th from Nelson west to Ogden, is architect Horace Ginsbern creation second only to his Park Plaza Apartments on Jerome Avenue and the Grand Concourse’s “Fish Building” in neighborhood apartment complexes. This group of buildings also echoes Mayan ornamentation, as did Park Plaza. When it was opened it was among the grandest residential residences in the borough:
Noonan Plaza was “so elegant that its doormen were attired in uniforms, adorned with small capes … Residents lucky enough to occupy apartments that overlooked the fifteen-thousand square foot interior garden were treated to a spectacular tableau; a waterfall splashing into a pool that was home to swans, goldfish, and water lilies … crisscrossed by a series of Japanese style bridges. Amenities inside included mothproof storage closets, Electrolux refrigerators, and an elevator roomy enough to accommodate wheelchairs for the elderly. Bathrooms featured built-in-tubs, colored tile walls, and hampers — all luxuries in their day.” Constance Rosenblum, Boulevard of Dreams
By 1975, according to Rosenblum, things had changed dramatically at the Noonan:
More and more welfare families were shuttled into the building where swans once swam amid water lilies in the courtyard pool, to be followed by squatters, vandals and drug dealers. The landlord who had owned the complex for less than five years abandoned the place, leaving behind 327 housing code violations… “Noonan Plaza is being torn apart,” wrote Donald Sullivan and Brian Danforth of Hunter College in their account of the decline. “Elevators, doors, windows, tiled ceilings, and garden furnishings have been brutally damaged…whole skylights have been taken off the roof and thrown to the ground below, sending broken glass in every direction, in order to sell the brass framing as scrap metal.”
You hope that equilibrium has been reached at the Noonan. In this area, Ogden Avenue in particular is an architectural hotbed and I hope to get up to Highbridge Heights sometime soon to shoot the great buildings found there.
As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site. Take a look at the new JOBS link in the red toolbar at the top of the page on the desktop version, as I also get a small payment when you view a job via that link.
10/2/24
13 comments
You hope to visit the Highbridge section of the Bronx soon to “shoot” the “great buildings…”? You should consider the possibility that YOU might be shot (& I don’t mean photographed.) You live in a lawless city that no longer provides civil immunity to the police officers who are sworn to “protect & serve” & judges are severely handicapped in their ability to set bail even for serial offenders. Therefore: “Do not go gently into that good night..”
With a camera. That’s what the pixels are for.
Please, stop kidding yourself. Yes, I know the only things you mean to shoot are photographs. Meanwhile, City Hall may be a crime scene:
https://nypost.com/2024/10/04/us-news/most-new-yorkers-want-eric-adams-to-resign-following-indictment-poll/
:
Ooh, the NY Post. Probably not a bastion of liberal thought. Oh, and thanks for having the courage to post under your own name. Oh, wait…
Hey, Porter: Here’s why I will continue to use my nom de Guerre. You people are ruthless in your pursuit of a revolution that normal Americans haven’t asked for. Please send my regards to Hillary, et al.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/06/us-news/hillary-clinton-warns-that-allowing-free-speech-on-social-media-means-we-lose-control/.
“USA!, USA!”
You guys keep up the politics and I’m deleting your posts.
Cool it
Plus, this just in:
https://nypost.com/2024/10/04/us-news/new-york-ex-gov-david-paterson-attacked-by-youngersters-on-upper-east-side-in-manhattan/
Please be careful.
This is a site for folks of common interest in New York City, in its history and in how we can still find vestiges of it all around us. While political discourse is important and encouraged, there are appropriate platforms where this can be practiced. Forgotten New York is not one of those places.
Seen on a bumper sticker recently down in Boca Raton:
”Keep politics out of Forgotten NY!”‘
Apparently, as of 2010, the complex was up for landmark consideration, though I don’t see any published report on newspapers dot com as to the final outcome; Wikipedia (take with a grain of a salt) says the landmark status was granted (June 22, 2010, reference number 2400).
I have it on my LPC landmarks map.
If you look at recent street view images, you can see that some effort has even been made to restore some elements within the past few years: decorative ironwork at the entrance replacing generic, and casement windows added to the corners of the two front towers.
KW: Apologies for the reply to the political poster. Please delete my comment.