Stand on the corner of Broadway and 73rd Street, tilt your head back, and let the Ansonia take your breath away. Seventeen stories of Beaux-Arts grandeur rise above the Upper West Side like a wedding cake designed by someone who believed more was never enough — turrets crowned with cupolas, a three-story mansard roof, and a facade of limestone, granite, white brick, and terracotta so ornate it practically vibrates.
This is the building that New York architecture nerds whisper about. Not because it’s the tallest or the newest, but because nothing else on the island has lived as many lives.
Built by a Man Who Couldn’t Stop
The Ansonia was the brainchild of William Earle Dodge Stokes, a real estate developer with more money than restraint. He named the building after his grandfather, the industrialist Anson Greene Phelps, and hired French architect Paul Emile Duboy to design it — though Stokes insisted on calling himself the “architect-in-chief,” which tells you everything about his personality.
Construction began in 1899 and wrapped in 1904. The original budget ballooned to $6 million — eight times what Stokes had planned. But what he got was staggering: 2,500 rooms, walls up to three feet thick for fireproofing and soundproofing, 175 miles of pipes, a pneumatic tube communication system, its own power plant, and one of the earliest air-conditioning systems in the city, using brine-cooled pipes to maintain a constant 70°F year-round.
The thick masonry walls made it a magnet for musicians. Opera singers, conductors, and composers flocked to the Ansonia because you could practice at full volume without bothering your neighbor. The building’s soundproofing was legendary — and intentional.
A Farm in the Sky
Here’s where the story gets wonderfully unhinged. Stokes maintained a working farm on the Ansonia’s roof. Bears. Chickens. Ducks. Goats. Hogs. All of them living seventeen stories above Broadway. Staff delivered fresh eggs to tenants every morning, free of charge.
It lasted until November 1907, when the New York City Department of Health raided the rooftop. The animals were relocated to Central Park. The eggs stopped. And the Upper West Side lost arguably the best perk in residential real estate history.
The Residents Who Made It Famous
The Ansonia’s tenant list reads like a fever dream. Babe Ruth lived here during his Yankees glory days, as did fellow players Bob Meusel, Lefty O’Doul, and Wally Schang. Chick Gandil — the Chicago White Sox player at the center of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal — also called it home.
Before the baseball players, the building was dominated by the musical elite. Its concert-hall-quality soundproofing attracted some of the greatest performers of the early 20th century, and the Ansonia became a de facto artists’ colony on the Upper West Side.
The Basement Years
By the late 1960s, the Ansonia’s basement had taken on a life of its own. The Continental Baths opened around 1968 as a gay bathhouse — and became an unlikely launchpad for superstardom. A young Bette Midler performed there regularly, accompanied on piano by an equally unknown Barry Manilow. The bathhouse closed in 1973, but not before writing one of the strangest origin stories in entertainment history.
A few years later, Plato’s Retreat took over the space — a swingers’ club for heterosexual couples that attracted over 250 couples per night at its peak. It featured a 60-person Jacuzzi, a dance floor, and private rooms. It closed in 1980, and the basement finally went quiet.
Saved by Its Own Residents
The Ansonia nearly didn’t survive. By the mid-20th century, the building had deteriorated badly under neglectful ownership. In the early 1970s, there were plans to demolish it entirely and replace it with a 40-story tower. But the residents fought back, gathering 25,770 petition signatures. On March 15, 1972, the Ansonia was designated a New York City landmark, and in 1980 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The condo conversion came in 1992. Today, the Ansonia holds 425 apartments — a fraction of its original 2,500 rooms. The turrets are still there. The facade still stops people in their tracks. And every now and then, someone standing on Broadway looks up and wonders what it would have been like to get fresh eggs delivered from a rooftop farm.
How to Visit
Address: 2109 Broadway (between 73rd and 74th Streets), Upper West Side, Manhattan
Nearest Subway: 72nd Street (1, 2, 3 trains)
Access: The Ansonia is a private residential building, so interior access is limited. However, the exterior is the main event — the facade is one of the most photographed in the city. Walk slowly around the building to take in the turrets, the mansard roof, and the terracotta details. The lobby is occasionally visible through the entrance.
Cost: Free (exterior viewing)
Best Time: Late afternoon, when the western sun lights up the limestone and terracotta facade
Insider Tip: Stand across Broadway on the east side of the street for the best full-building view. Then walk to the corner of 73rd Street to see the turrets from below — the detail work is extraordinary. If you’re an architecture buff, pair this with a walk north to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library for a free rooftop view of Midtown, or south to the Dakota at 72nd Street for another legendary Upper West Side landmark.
The Ansonia is one of those buildings that reminds you New York doesn’t just build structures — it builds characters. This one has had more plot twists than most novels, and it’s still standing on Broadway, impossible to ignore, exactly as Stokes intended.
