Apartment building in Manhattan, New York
The Sherwood Studio Building was an artists' apartment building at 58 West 57th Street, at the southeast corner with Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was constructed in 1879 as artists' apartments. It was demolished in 1960 to permit the construction of a large apartment building called Hemisphere House.
It differed from the other studio buildings of its time in its extent and in the amenities it offered. It was taller than most, with great floor-to-ceiling windows, many of which gathered northern light across an unusually broad street. In addition to spacious studios, its apartments contained bedrooms, bathrooms, and reception rooms. Each apartment had central heating, gas light, and, for internal communication, electric bells and speaking tubes. The building's elevator was large enough to fit oversize works of art. There was an exhibition hall that could also be used for receptions and parties. An on-site café-restaurant helped to compensate for the building's lack of kitchenettes and became popular for the social interaction it enabled as well as the meals it provided.
In its early years, the building adjoined the homes of prosperous art collectors and a later transformation brought luxury shops and tony cultural institutions as its neighbors. With all these advantages, "the Sherwood", as it came to be called, succeeded in attracting artists who were comfortably well off, whether because they had already established successful careers or because they benefited from inherited wealth. Moreover, its location and amenities made it particularly attractive to single women and small families.
History of the site.
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Quote_box/styles.css" / ;
Such men as Coleman and Church, extracted a conditional promise from me years ago that I would plan and build an establishment coming within the means of artists in this country, who have, by the way, to be content with smaller prices than their brethren in Europe, but are, nevertheless, in the receipt of sufficient incomes to live comfortably, even elegantly, in quarters suited to their professional and personal requirements. — John H. Sherman speaking to a reporter in May 1879.
The Sherwood Studio Building was located in the southeast corner of 57th Street where it meets Sixth Avenue. 57th Street was designated by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 that established the Manhattan street grid as one of 15 east-west streets that would be in width (while other streets were designated as in width). Following the plan, the street was laid out and opened in 1857. However, more than a decade later, the block of the street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was still mostly undeveloped and noted for its boulders and deep ravines where squatters lived in shanties. That changed in the mid-1870s when wealthy New Yorkers began to put up large family residences on the block. William B. Bishop, a banker and stockbroker, built one of the first, a brownstone at number 10. Others soon followed. At that time, the block's best-known residents were two branches of the Roosevelt family, one headed by James A. Roosevelt and the other by Theodore Roosevelt Sr. (the latter being the father of President Theodore Roosevelt). A directory of 1881 adds the names of other prominent citizens including merchant Augustus D. Juilliard, financier William Bayard Cutting, and banker Jacob Schiff. The intersection of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue was further developed in 1879 with the construction of the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House at the northwest corner. One contemporary observer described the block's family homes as "first-class dwelling houses". Another called them "the brown-stone mansions of rich brewers, the François Premier chateaux of bankers, the Gothic palaces of railroad kings".
When the Sherwood Studio Building was developed, many lots in the area measured , a real estate practice that had begun during colonial times. Vacant lots could be bought and sold individually or in contiguous groups of two, three, or four. Representative sales in the 1870s show lots on 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues selling for about $25,000 each. In 1871, a man named William Sloan paid $88,000 to Frederick Hornby to purchase the four lots on which the Sherwood Studio Building would be constructed. A year later, Sloan sold the lots to Gardner G. Yevelin for $115,000. In 1874, the man who designed and constructed the building bought them from Yevelin for $130,000. Sloan, Hornby, and Yevelin were all men who bought and sold real estate in New York.
Decision to build.
The man who bought the four lots was John H. Sherwood (1816-1887). At the age of 40, Sherwood had begun buying and selling city real estate. He succeeded to such an extent that at the time of his death his property was estimated to be worth all of $2 million, an amount roughly equal to $55 million in the dollars of 2021 according to the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator. As his wealth grew, Sherwood expanded his interests to include insurance, banking, and political activism. He also acquired a large collection of paintings many of which he had commissioned from the artists who made them. Like other American art patrons of his time, he bought paintings by established European artists, but, unlike them, he also bought from young and relatively impecunious American artists, including John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. Works by Sargent in his collection included the highly-regarded painting, "In the Luxembourg Gardens", of 1879 and works by Homer included the famous "Snap the Whip" of 1872. Sherwood had supported his great-nephew, Carroll Beckwith, when he arrived in New York from Chicago in 1871 and had soon become acquainted with William Merritt Chase along with Sargent and Homer and others of Beckwith's artist friends.
As well as trading in real estate lots, Sherwood designed and constructed buildings. In an 1879 interview about the design and construction of the Sherwood Studio Building, he said that "such men as Coleman and Church" had convinced him to undertake the project, meaning the artists Charles Caryl Coleman and Frederic Edwin Church. His aim, as he put it, was to "plan and build an establishment coming within the means of artists in this country, who have, by the way, to be content with smaller prices than their brethren in Europe, but are, nevertheless, in the receipt of sufficient incomes to live comfortably, even elegantly, in quarters suited to their professional and personal requirements". He hoped his artist tenants would form a "sort of exclusive colony" to which none would be admitted who were "likely to prove offensive members of the general body politic".
Construction and early years.
During the late 1870s, real estate construction experienced dramatic growth as the recovery from the Panic of 1873 as financial confidence increased and low-interest loans became more readily available while at the same time the cost of labor and materials remained relatively low. Over a period of some 12 months between 1879 and 1880, Sherwood was able to construct the building at a cost, in cash, of about $260,000. Some months after it was completed he took out a mortgage of $150,000 and a few years later borrowed another $50,000. When he began accepting tenants, the building's design was not far from the plans he had outlined to a reporter at the outset. The structure was seven stories high and almost exactly a square ( on Sixth Avenue and on 57th Street. Considered by a contemporary to have a plain facade with "no extraneous ornament", its exterior walls were made of red brick accompanied by stone and iron elements. The ground floor was devoted to shops. Above that, each floor had floor-to-ceiling windows and the top floor had skylights as well. The apartments facing 57th Street were expected to be the most desirable having both northern exposure and extra light resulting from the avenue's extra width. The building's apartments had high ceilings and an extra-large elevator to accommodate large canvases or pieces of sculpture. They possessed conveniences that were not widely available at the time including hot and cold water, electric bells, speaking tubes, gas (for illumination), and central heating. There was also a restaurant for tenants' use. When it opened in the Spring of 1880, the building was said to dominate all the houses in its vicinity. Writing in 1910, an observer said the building looked "almost as fresh as when it was erected, its precise lines testifying to an exceptional thoroughness of construction".
The studios, with their great windows, were the largest rooms. Between them and a central hallway were reception rooms, one or two bedrooms, and bathrooms, all of them windowless. There were initially no provisions for cooking, however, some apartments were modified in later decades to include kitchenettes and, at least in one case, a full kitchen.
Leases were required of all tenants. Rents varied by size and location of apartments—higher for corner apartments, apartments facing 57th Street, and apartments on upper floors. The combination of studio and residence in one apartment, including private bathroom, was particularly attractive to women artists and small families. By 1883, the building was fully tenanted and demand persisted sufficiently for rents to be regularly raised. By 1910, it had fulfilled Sherwood's purpose in designing and constructing it. As one man who knew the place well wrote, it had by then become a "hive of studios where much has been produced that has proved illustrious in American art for three decades past". In 1892, the building was deemed New York's "uptown headquarters of Art". So many of its tenants had been students together that a social gathering could feel, one said, like a "reunion of old friends". In succeeding decades, the building would also attract a growing number of non-artists who appreciated the artistic ambiance and found the large studio rooms ideal for entertaining guests.
At a time when there were few commercial art galleries and when those few did not routinely show American art, New York artists adopted the practice of opening their studios to draw in prospective customers. Sherwood artists coordinated with each other, opening their studios to the public, generally on Thursdays and Saturdays, in hopes of generating sales. They sent out hundreds of invitations and drew so many visitors that at least on one occasion they had to announce that "only those persons who have received cards of invitation will be expected". Regarding one reception, Carroll Beckwith recorded in his diary the attendance of "crowds of swell people", adding that his studio was "jammed". In 1910, the British artist, Robert J. Wickenden, recalled a visit to a Sherwood reception: "Among my early recollections of the Sherwood Studios was the attending of a reception held simultaneously by all the artists in the building during the winter of 1880-81; ... [O]n the top floor, amid a number of brilliant portraits, and some fresh studies from Velasquez, James Carroll Beckwith, more widely known as "Carroll Beckwith", received his numerous friends among the artists and students, with such leaders of New York City as were interested in the then newer movement in American art".
The artist tenants of the Sherwood Studio Building soon became known for the parties they gave. An 1889 photo showed artist tenants at a costume party held in one of the studios. A year later, an artist caused a minor sensation when he arranged for the Spanish dancer known as Carmencita to perform at a party in his studio, and a few years after that the same artist hosted an "infants party" that required all guests to come dressed as children. Invitations to these high jinks were said to be avidly sought after as opportunities for non-artists to glimpse a "rarefied Bohemia". The building's invitation-only social events figured in popular literature. In a 1903 short story, a young lady asks a gentleman friend to escort her to an "artists' frolic" saying she is determined to "do something desperate". It does not matter that her aunt will be completely shocked because, she says, "I am simply crazy for an evening of careless, happy-go-lucky fun".
Artists would also hold late-night parties on the spur of the moment, including, according to one investigator, "dances, card games, concerts, or boozy salons". Evening meals in the restaurant were social occasions as well. Originally located just above the ground floor, the restaurant was moved down to the rear of two stores that faced Sixth Avenue in 1881. In 1910, a gossip columnist