TheBronxRocks.com

This building stopped me in my tracks while walking along the Grand Concourse…Two residents were very willing and eager to show off their building, telling me that it draws architecture students from all over and was featured a decade ago in the New York Times (see article).  They said locals refer to it as the “Fish House” due to an elaborate mosaic on the facade of thebuilding (see excerpt below).

From the NY Times: “Perhaps the most spectacular Art Deco apartment house on the avenue is Horace Ginsbern’s 1150 Grand Concourse, built in 1937 at McClellan Place, a few blocks up from the Bronx County Courthouse. The Art Moderne-style facade is a complicated pattern of curved corners and sloping balcony walls, without the zigzag decoration of other Art Deco buildings.”

“But what makes people stop and stare is the astounding color-mosaic fantasy of undersea life — tendrils, fish, jellyfish and bubbles — flanking the main doors. The parts of the main doors that remain are remarkable constructions of stainless steel and brass. The entry area is surrounded by a field of dark cast stone with inset green glass forms.”

“As along most of the Grand Concourse, people have become used to astonished passers-by; the lobby attendant at 1150 recently waved a visitor inside casually — ”In the summer this happens almost every day,” she said. The lobby has two large murals of fantastic nature scenes, by C. P. Graves and Rene Graves, and a terrazzo floor that inventively mixes small and large stone chips in contrasting colors. A wall of thick frosted glass screens the mail room.”

“Except for occasional damage, the lobby looks more like an imported period room on loan to the Museum of Modern Art than a hall in a middle-class building.” 

Unfortunately, I didn’t read this article until just now, or I would have definitely gone inside! Another time…