The Prasada
The Prasada at 50 Central Park West in Manhattan, a luxury apartment house built in 1905-07 by the speculative builders Franklin and Samuel Haines to designs of Charles W. Romeyn and Henry R. Wynne, is a contributing building in the Central Park West Historic District. Originally, it contained only three rambling apartments per floor, an eight-room apartment at the rear and two ten-room apartments spanning the front facing Central Park. The building ranges round an open court, with stained-glass slylights that illuminate the lobby.
The structure is a bold essay in the French Second Empire style. The structure was one of three that established Central Park West as an avenue of tall apartment blocks, in this case of twelve storeys.
Extensive alterations in 1919 removed the Mansard roof that was a prominent feature from the Park. and provided more modern apartment hotel facilities. At street level is a coved recessed entrance screened with banded Roman Doric columns, of which architectural historian Christopher Gray observes "The four banded columns at the entrance make an impressive statement, but overall the result is tepid." A dry moat separates the ground floor from pedestrian passers-by.
The Prasada was featured in the film Three Men & A Baby.
