John E. Scharsmith

John E. Scharsmith was an American architect of Swiss extraction with a practice in New York City. Having served with a New York regiment in the American Civil War, by the turn of the 20th century, with offices at 1 Madison Avenue,[1] he was responsible for several landmarked apartment blocks in Beaux-Arts style, such as The Hohenzollern, West End Avenue and 84th Street (1902), and The Chatsworth Apartments, 344 West 72nd Street, (1902–04, Annex, 1905–06),[2] and for the eight-storey apartment block, 425 West End Avenue, at 72nd Street (1905).[3] He designed the neo-Gothic Swiss House, 37 West 67th Street (1906–07), built for the Swiss Benevolent Society as a home for aged Swiss, one among a group of artists' studio buildings on that block being constructed at the time by various firms.[4]

His office also provided designs for less ambitious projects, such as the Fort Tryon Apartments, northeast corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and 180th Street (for Moersh & Wille, 1907)[5] the pair of 6-storey brick and stone apartment houses at the northwest corner of St Nicholas Avenue and 163rd Street and southwest corner of 164th Street (1908)[6] or stables he built on West 151st Street just west of Convent Avenue, for John Quinn (1897).[7] Scharsmith designed the extant block of Renaissance Revival rowhouses at 449-459 Convent Avenue, near 150th Street (1896–97).[8]

Notes
  1. Office for Metropolitan History, "Manhattan NB Database 1900-1986 (accessed 25 February 2010).
  2. Builders: George F. Johnson, Jr. and Aleck Kahn; Landmarks Preservation Commission: Chatsworth Apartments Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine; Andrew Dolkart, Matthew A. Postal, Guide to New York City Landmarks, cat. no. 388; Christopher Gray, "Streetscapes: The Chatsworth; Riverside South's Threat to a 1904 Apartment Tower," The New York Times, 13 December 1992 (accessed 25 February 2010).
  3. Office for Metropolitan History, "Manhattan NB Database 1900-1986 (accessed 25 February 2010).
  4. National Register of Historic Places: West 67th Street Artists' Colony Historic District Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine, 1985; Christopher Gray, "Streetscapes: The Swiss Home; With Not Enough Old Indigents to Fill It, It's for Sale" The New York Times, 25 September 1994 (accessed 25 February 2010).
  5. New York Public Library: Digital Gallery, "Apartment houses: New York (State): New York"
  6. Office for Metropolitan History, "Manhattan NB Database 1900-1986," (accessed 25 February 2010),
  7. "In the Real Estate Field, The New York Times 18 September 1897
  8. Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District Extension Designation Report, 2001
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