The Delta Psi, Alpha Chapter fraternity house is located at 434 Riverside Drive in the

Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It was purpose built in 1898 and continues to serve the Columbia Chapter of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (aka

St. Anthony Hall St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on , the Calendar of saints, feast day of Anthony the Great, Saint Anthony the Great. The frater ...

), a social and literary fraternity. The chapter house was designed by two prominent New York City architects,

Henry Hornbostel Henry Hornbostel (August 15, 1867 – December 13, 1961) was an American architect and educator. Hornbostel designed more than 225 buildings, bridges, and monuments in the United States. Twenty-two of his designs are listed on the National Regis ...

and

George Carnegie Palmer George Carnegie Palmer (December 20, 1861 – February 29, 1934), was an American architect who specialized in civic and academic buildings across the United States. He best known for his work with the architect Henry Hornbostel, Henry F. Hornbo ...

. At this time of its construction, it was "the best appointed and most costly raternitybuilding that has ever been erected in the United States". The Delta Psi, Alpha Chapter building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on April 26, 1996, for its architectural significance.

History

On March 23, 1897, the Alpha Chapter of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (

) purchased a 36–foot wide lot on 434 Riverside Drive from Harriet B. Hale. The fraternity's intent was to build a new chapter house closer to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

which had recently moved to

. Their previous

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

style chapter house, designed in 1879 by fraternity member William Hamilton Russell of the firm of

James Renwick, Jr James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, in Upper Manhattan, New York City – June 23, 1895, New York City) was an American architect in the 19th century. ''The Encyclopedia of American Architecture'' calls him "one of the most ...

., was at 29 E. 28th Street. In addition to proximity to campus, the new site "afforded breathtaking views of the Hudson River and New Jersey palisades." In 1898, the fraternity hired the architectural firm of Wood, Palmer & Hornbostel to design its new chapter house.Paonessa, Laurie (October 5, 2021).
Delta Psi, Alpha Chapter (St. Anthony Hall)
. ''Clio: Your Guide to History''. Retrieved March 27, 2022. The architects were

and

; the latter was a member of the Columbia Chapter of St. Anthony Hall. The architects filed plans with the city on August 26, 1898. The plans called for a five-story building constructed of brick and stone, costing $45,000. The estimated cost of $45,000 in about $1.43 million in 2021 dollars; however, the final cost was closer to $80,000. In 1899, the lot was worth another $20,000. At the time the fraternity built this chapter house, students did not live on Columbia's campus. Thus, "Delta Psi was not only the first fraternity to erect its own chapter house near the new Columbia campus, but, in 1899, when it was completed, it was one of only a handful of buildings on

where students could live." Although two other fraternities also built chapter houses in the Morningside neighborhood, this is the only one still in use by a fraternity. Ultimately, land values increased so quickly that its cost outpriced student housing. By 1905, Columbia University provided on-campus residences for students.

Description

The Alpha Chapter house was designed in Beaux Arts and

French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define th ...

revival styles. It is unknown why this style was chosen. The style may have been selected "because it was fashionable or because the red brick and limestone trim were similar to the materials used at Columbia's new buildings. However, it is very likely that the style was chosen because it resembled that used on James Renwick's earlier fraternity house" on 28th Street. The building has five stories and a basement. The foundation is constructed of white

Indiana limestone Indiana limestone — also known as Bedford limestone in the building trade — has long been an economically important building material, particularly for monumental public structures. Indiana limestone is a more common term for Salem Limestone, ...

. The first story is completely faced with Indiana limestone, with the remaining stories being in red brick that is heavily trimmed in limestone. Above the fourth story, there is a stone cornice surrounding a carved

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

with the fraternity's Greek letters ΔΨ. The entrance stoop has granite steps that lead through an arched entrance with ornate

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a ...

gates. The actual entrance is set back with a seven-foot wide covered porch or arcade that also served as a balcony for the second story (see photo to left). However, the original north-facing arcade and the windows above it are now blocked by an adjacent building that was constructed in 1910. The upper levels are L–shaped with

light court In architecture, a lightwell,light well, light-well sky-well,skywell, sky well or air shaft is an unroofed or roofed external space provided within the volume of a large building to allow light and air to reach what would otherwise be a dark or ...

s to provide natural light and ventilation for all rooms. The second, third, and fourth floors have balconies with wrought iron railings. The fifth floor had copper covered

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

s. The pyramid-shaped roof is covered in slate. There is also a small yard at the back of the building. The main entrance goes to an arcade that leads to an L–shaped hallway with

Doric columns The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

, paneled

wainscotting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

, a

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

, and wooden doors. The first and second floors contain public spaces, including a coat room, reception room, parlors, a ballroom, a billiard room, a study, and a dining room. The main parlor on the first floor is

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

al–shaped and features a large marble fireplace and overmantel which is decorated with owls, shields, and decorative moldings. The fireplace was given in memory of Joseph Wild Mackay who joined the fraternity in 1900.Meyer, H. L. G
Catalog of the Members of the Fraternity of Delta Psi Revised and Corrected to July 1906
New York: Fraternity of Delta Psi, 1906. pp. 47 and 50. ''via'' Google Books Also on the first floor, the Arts and Crafts style dining room stretches across the entire width of the building and features Dutch shelving, leaded windows, and wood wainscotting. The second-floor billiard room is still in use. The stairs have

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

treads and iron risers, railings, and

baluster A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its cons ...

s. There were additional stairs for servants. The upper three levels include bedrooms for twenty to 25 fraternity members. The third floor also includes a library with built-in shelving, a fireplace, and a molded plaster ceiling; the library is dedicated in memory of Henry Evelyn Pierrepont Jr, who joined the fraternity in 1896 and died in 1903. The basement includes a caretaker's room and a "secret chapter meeting room". In 1906, fraternity historian Edward Fermor Hall wrote that the Alpha Chapter house was "beautifully decorated and finished in marble at a large expense."

Pop culture

* On July 11, 1915, Delta Psi alumni Daniel Leroy Dresser committed suicide over financial problems in the library of the chapter house.Suicide Due to Money Worries
. ''The Boston Globe''. July 11, 1915. p. 2. Retrieved March 14, 2022 – via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

. Dresser was the brother–in–law of

George Washington Vanderbilt II George Washington Vanderbilt II (November 14, 1862 – March 6, 1914) was an art collector and member of the prominent Vanderbilt family, which amassed a huge fortune through steamboats, railroads, and various business enterprises. He commission ...

Biltmore Estate Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House (or Biltmore Mansion), the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 a ...

. * The chandelier in the ballroom was featured on the cover of

Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, ...

's first album.Harris, Sophie (January 29, 2018).
Vampire Weekend's Debut Album: 10 Things You Didn't Know
. ''Rolling Stone''. Retrieved August 3, 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delta Psi Alpha Chapter Building Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Cultural infrastructure completed in 1898 Morningside Heights, Manhattan Columbia University campus St. Anthony Hall Fraternity and sorority houses Henry Hornbostel buildings