Building: 131 Riverside Drive

131 Riverside Drive, known as the Dorchester, was designed by the architectural firm of Neville and Bagge for A.C. and H.M. Hall, and completed in 1909. The history of how 131 Riverside Drive came into being is a typical indication of how real estate was developed in New York City in the early part of the 20th Century.

Riverside Drive (originally know as Riverside Avenue until 1908) and the adjacent side streets were laid out and paved in the early 1880’s, at which time the neighborhood was developed with single family dwellings. However, the property on the east side of Riverside Avenue from West 85th Street to West 86th Street, going east 200 feet, became the Episcopal Home of Mercy – a wood frame and brick structure occupying a small percentage of the acre-or-so of land. Later, the building was used for Misses Ely’s School. By the first decade of the 1900’s, the underutilized land occupied by the school was ripe for development. In 1905 the school was sold as one parcel to an investor who divided the property into two equal parcels – one on West 85th Street and the other on West 86th Street, each with 102 feet of Avenue frontage and 200 feet of Street frontage. The property on West 86th Street was acquired by Ranald Macdonald who subsequently divided his property in half and built the Clarendon on the corner plot in 1907 (Charles Birge – architect). The remaining property along West 86th Street (now designated as 340 West 86th Street) was sold to developer Harry Schiff.

Description provided by Deanna Kory