Van Dyck and Severn Apartments, ca. 1910.

This set of twin, 12-story apartment buildings were designed by the, now largely forgotten, firm of Mulliken & Moeller. The firm created large apartment houses and hotels on the Upper West Side and Midtown South, often employing the same formula: structures clad in contrasting flat brick and ornately sculptured cream-colored terra cotta. These two building, constructed between 1905 and 1907, tweaked the firm's winning formula slightly, with the oversupply of terra cotta.

The apartments (Severn at left and Van Dyck at right, pictured here) rented initially for $160 to $320 a month. The Van Dyck included slightly more luxurious residences of eight to eleven rooms and two or three bathrooms. Another feature noted in early advertisements are seven magnetic hand-controlled elevators used for both passenger and freight service.