[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Help me beat off the forces of Evil. Your assistance will be appreciated.
Ralph >>

Here's the best I can do Ralph - best of luck beating them off.
---Christopher


                 October  3, 1993, Sunday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 10; Page 8; Column 1; Real Estate Desk

LENGTH: 736 words

HEADLINE: Streetscapes/Window Awnings;
A Small Revival for a Long-Vanished Adornment

BYLINE: By  CHRISTOPHER GRAY

 BODY:
   THE hot weather is over and the apartment houses should start taking down
their canvas window awnings -- except that they stopped putting them up half a
century ago.

   But over the last decade one building, 180 Riverside Drive at 90th Street,
has staged a micro-revival of the floppy striped-canvas artifacts whose
disappearance is still hard to explain.

    Canvas awnings began to supplant wooden shutters in the mid-19th century,
and by 1900 summer awnings were nearly universal. Some early designs were
elaborate, like those of the Ardelle, at 527 Riverside Drive, which had a
large
"A" in a circle of laurel and ornate borders.

   But the typical awning was a simple striped affair, although reserved
solids
had a vogue in the late 20's on real luxury buildings. There are photographs
of
buildings with awnings in every window, but others show that some tenants --
perhaps 10 to 25 percent -- apparently declined them.

   J. Mitchell Jablons grew up at 898 West End Avenue in the 30's and
remembers
that his family's awnings "killed any wind that might come along" and thus
were
raised at night.

   Where possible, it was customary to draw the awning flush against the
window
frame when the tenants were away for the summer; a building with all the
awnings
drawn in this way was obviously upper-class.

   But for everyone in the city awnings were fixtures of the seasons, an urban
counterpart to the hum of cicadas on a summer night.  Robert Bien, an
architect
and partner in the Eggers Group, grew up at 175 Riverside Drive and recalls
the
respective signs of winter and summer as "the rattle of coal down sidewalk
holes, and the man coming in to put the awnings up."

   Julio Lo Iacono, retired president of the Acme Awning Company, recalls the
industry in the 40's and says that awnings were usually stored on the premises
of buildings in the winter. They lasted for six or seven years, and the charge
was $2 or $3 a window. But somehow, after World War II, they vanished.

   "The last ones were up on Morningside Drive around 115th Street" Mr. Lo
Iacono said. Few apartments at this time had air-conditioning, and it is hard
to
explain the disappearance.
                                                                        PAGE
 37
                      The New York Times, October 3, 1993


   PERHAPS it was a discretionary item in a housing economy with dwindling
room
for extras, but perhaps, too, awnings seemed irretrievably stuffy and
Victorian.

   In recent years, some hotels have installed awnings as year-round
advertising. Summertime awnings still remain in relatively frequent use on
penthouses, but they generally appear only on principal building facades as
odd
exceptions, often for studio apartments with direct sun.

   Until 1980, 180 Riverside Drive was like almost every other building on the
West Side, no different in summer or winter. But then Nora Schwartz, a
shareholder, went out to dinner. "I was at a restaurant near Lincoln Center,"
she said, "and I thought, 'the light in here is really beautiful.' They had
awnings."

   She and her husband, Gabriel, had no air-conditioners in their windows
facing
the river. "I didn't want the view blocked by those big boxes," she said

   They installed awnings on the living room windows facing Riverside Drive
and
became devotees. Three other tenants have since installed them, including
William Meyers, who is an eloquent apologist for awnings.

   "IT'S not that I am against the machine," he said. "It's that the awning is
so much more pleasurable, like sitting under a shade tree on a hot day. It's a
real example of low-tech being effective," although no one pretends that
awnings
cool like air-conditioners.

   Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz designed their awning with stripes of white and terra
cotta, roughly matching the limestone and brick of the building. The board
required that future awnings follow their plan.

   The building is in a historic district designated in 1989, and this summer,
when some awnings needed replacement, the board got the approval of the
Landmarks Preservation Commission. "They thought it was the best thing since
sliced bread" said Dennis Mack, the current board president.

   Awnings now run $400 to $600 a window. The tenants at 180 Riverside Drive
leave them out in the winter, although they furl them.

   But any revival will probably continue to be on a small scale. No other
tenants have followed the lead offered by the Schwartzes and their neighbors.
"I'm so surprised that they don't think about them," Mrs. Schwartz said. "The
light is so soft and beautiful."

GRAPHIC: Photos: Awnings in some windows at 180 Riverside Drive at 90th
Street.
(Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times); Awnings at the Beresford, Central Park
West at 81st Street, circa 1930. (The Wurts Collection/Museum of the City of
New
York)

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH