Origin

30 West 56th Street was designed by C.P.H. Gilbert for prominent investment banker Henry Seligman and his wife Adelaide and was constructed between 1899 and 1901. Seligman was a senior partner in the prestigious investment banking firm of J. & W. Seligman & Company, founded in 1864 by his uncles and his father, Jesse. Henry Seligman was also influential in financing railroad construction in the American West as well as serving as a director for several major industrial and artistic organizations across the United States.

The building is a particularly grand and well-preserved example of the fashionable townhouses on the block built for bankers at the turn of the twentieth century when the street became known as “Bankers’ Row.”

Building Details

Gilbert employed the restrained neo-French Renaissance style on a limestone façade spanning two lots that gave the townhouse an imposing presence. Above the rusticated ground floor are original second-story wood windows and an intricately carved stone balcony supported by brackets.

Adorning the second, third and fourth floors are stone quoins and window surrounds with broken lintels over the central windows on the third and fourth floors. A fourth-story balcony and a large ornate cornice resting on paired consoles further enhance the look of the elegant façade. A mansard roof with elaborate segmental-arched dormers projects over the roof lines of the adjoining buildings.

Seligman and his wife resided at 30 West 56th Street until their deaths in 1933 and 1934, respectively. The building was then converted into apartments in 1941.