The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter Hardcover – February 2, 2002

I have owned the first edition of this book for many years and it has become a favorite in my library of Acanthus Press and other architectural books. The compilation of Candela and Carpenter apartment houses in New York City is frequently my " go-to" book at bedtime. As others have noted, it is floor plan intensive... and that is exactly what I like about it. If you're someone who sought out house plan magazines in grocery stores because you liked to study the arrangement of rooms, I'd encourage you to buy this book. Keep in mind, the arrangements reflect the lifestyle of well-heeled people at the time that Candela and Carpenter were designing... the late 1800s through the 1930s or so. Don't look for media rooms, family rooms, or expansive and innovative kitchen layouts. What you will find are elegantly and intelligently ordered accommodations that addressed the social, private, and service needs of well-to-do apartment dwellers. Many notable families conceded single family townhouses for multi-family housing under one roof in what was still a very more formal era. One of my favorite discoveries was the inclusion of spacious entrance galleries to receive guests instead of an awkward, cramped vestibule or foyer. Also take particular note of how domestics in household service fit into the traffic patterns and privacies of these residences. I have also come across apartments featured in this book and others by Alpern in new books showcasing current architects. It was fascinating to see how these adept preofessionals updated the individual apartments to meet modern needs while respecting the integrity of the original design.

Alpern continues with the format used in his "New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments", which serves the subject matter well. This new volume is also a worthwhile extension of the earlier work for those interested in New York apartment buildings, with very little overlap. However, considering the fairly high price of this book, it would have been nice to see included current photos of at least some of the apartment buildings as they appear today. This would also have provided another level of the always fascinating "then and now" element already included in the book, where illustrations were included depicting what some of the apartment buildings replaced. This was an excellent opportunity missed, perhaps, to provide an amazing encapsulation of the ever-changing and yet at the same time remarkably un-changing landscape of New York City, without detracting from the intended subject of the book. Overall, though, a very agreeable and interesting reference work.

This book gives an accurate account as of how the transition from single family homes to apartments was handled for well to do and privileged families in the first third of the twentieth century in NYC. That trend was then followed in other parts of the USA and the world. In that sense, it is part of the history of modern architecture, that was influenced by the rising prices of real estate, and also by the rise in cost of living. This influenced the way people lived.The only thing that could have made it better, would have been to include how those apartments have been modified in time to their present layout. However, I understand that this would have been impossible to achieve.Great book!

Candela and Carpenter were two of New York's most noted architects of the inter-war era, specializing in luxury apartment buildings. Architectural historian Andrew Alpern has assembled a reference text of their buildings, organized in geographic sequence. In this book, a typical building has two pages dedicated to it. One page consists of a floor plan, and the facing page has a photo or rendering of the exterior, combined with a one-to-six sentence description. Also, there are several brief essays at the beginning of the book.I enjoyed this volume, which Alpern has directed at a very narrow segment of readers, but it's not for everyone. This is a volume for architectural enthusiasts who are intrigued by room arrangements. Others might be better served by a book broader in scope (including some by this same author).

I purchased this book strictly to get a glimpse of the floor plans of these luxury apartment buildings. I was not disappointed. Each building has at least one apartment's floor plan, and many drawings included the floor plans of neighboring apartments; consequently, one gets an idea of the number of apartments on each building level. Just perusing the pages of the book gave me a sense of "touring" each building. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can use my imagination furnishing the interiors so I did not miss fancy color photographs of decorated interiors.

Excellent book of a bygone era and worth the expenseWell written and mentally won't go on overload.Welcome addition to an informed New York library.Some maids must have had it pretty good in an age whenthey had good architects to take care of them andprotect them from minimum wage. Future editionsmight include a couple of maps in an appendix fornon New York types. Buy now.

The apartments are grand with generous size rooms. The dining rooms are typically about 22 feet long which allows for large tables and gatherings. The ceilings are typically ten feet high and many of the living spaces have fireplaces that are still operable. Large dinner gatherings are back in vogue and so are these flats.

I love this book. Have it out on the coffee table and often open it up to browse the great apartment buildings of NYC and to see the lovely interiors of yesteryear. Wonderful book. So glad I purchased it. Very good quality book too.