Building Spotlight: WINDSOR TOWER, NO. 5

Continuing our survey of individual Tudor City buildings, here's the lowdown on Windsor Tower, No. 5, known within the French Company as the Ninth Unit.

Windsor Tower's western and eastern facades, as rendered on SimCity, a city-building computer game.

Detail of 1929 ad

➺ Opened January 1, 1930 as an Apartment Hotel (efficiency apartments offering hotel amenities like maid and laundry services, as well as a central switchboard). Faced with red brick, trimmed with limestone and terra cotta. 

➺ 22 stories, plus 4 sub-floors. 788 apartments, the most of any Tudor City building, primarily studios and one bedrooms. The only building on Tudor City Place to offer river views, because the slaughterhouse district ended one block north.

➺ Considered the grandest building in the complex because of its 10 showplace penthouses, with dizzying city views and drop-dead double-height ceilings.

Studio floor plan, 1930. Dotted lines represent Murphy beds.

No. 5 offered the most services of any Tudor City building, as shown above, circa 1941. The Grey Room was a community space used for dances, lectures, art exhibits and the like.

No. 5 also houses a block-long SHOPPING ARCADE at its eastern base. Now unoccupied, it variously housed a radio shop, a Studebaker showroom and the clubhouse of the Tudor City Camera Club over the years. We think its fortunes are looking up with the current (and inevitable future) development along First Avenue.