73rd St & Amsterdam Ave. · Apartments for Rent

This distinguished, 14-story, mid-block, apartment building at 160 West 73rd Street was completed in 1929 as Sherman Square Studios for Walter Russell. A May 27, 1928 article in The New York Times maintained that the building was "another in a long series of studio buildings erected by Walter Russell since 1900, at which time he began the erection of the studio colony on West 67th Street, and later on his east side studio buildings and Pierre s at 290 Park Avenue." The West 67th Street "colony" included the celebrated Hotel des Artistes, known for its very large painter’s studios and its ground-floor restaurant. "A notable feature of this building," the article continued, "is the fact that it will be scientifically sound-proofed, even to the doors. The walls dividing each studio are not only double walls, but the building has been so planned that the studios are separated from each other by intervening chambers, and from the corridors by waiting rooms, pantries, bathrooms etc. In these days of radio, the sound-proof feature should be an interesting feature of all classes of buildings, and the innovation of sound-proofing on this building may be an object lesson worth emulating." The article also noted that the building was to have "free cooking service in a main kitchen, where the cooks’ wages are part of the operating expenses of the building and where the tenants’ food may be prepared for them and sent to their rooms in heated containers."