Emery Roth

Emery Roth
Born	1871 Sečovce, Austria-Hungary
Died	August 20, 1948 New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	Austria-Hungary, United States
Citizenship	Austria-Hungary (1871–1948) United States (1884–1948)
Occupation	Architect
Notable work	Hotel Belleclaire (1903) Ritz Hotel Tower (1925) The Eldorado (1929–31) The San Remo (1930) The Ardsley (1931) 2 Sutton Place South (1938) 300 East 57th Street (1947)
Spouse(s)	Ella Grosman
Children	Julian, Richard, Elizabeth, Kathrin

Emery Roth (Hungarian: Róth Imre, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of Jewish descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. His sons continued in the family enterprise, largely expanding the firm under the name Emery Roth & Sons.

Biography

Born in Sečovce (Hungarian: Gálszécs), Austria-Hungary (now Slovakia) to a Jewish family, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 13 after his family fell into poverty upon his father's death. He began his architectural apprenticeship as a draftsman in the Chicago offices of Burnham & Root, working on the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. There he met Richard Morris Hunt, who was impressed with his skills and invited Roth to work in his office in New York. Following Hunt's premature death in 1895, Roth moved to the office of Ogden Codman, Jr., a designer and decorator with a Newport clientele. In the interwar years, the firm of Emery Roth delivered some of the most influential examples of architecture for apartment houses in the at-the-time fashionable beaux art-style, especially in Manhattan. In 1938, Roth included his sons Julian and Richard as partners.

Buildings designed

The Beresford

The Eldorado

Building	Year	Location	Notes
The Saxony	1899-1900	250 West 82nd Street
Hotel Belleclaire	1903	Broadway
The Adath Jeshurun of Jassy synagogue	1903	58 Rivington Street
601 West End Avenue	1915	601 West End Avenue
The First Hungarian Reformed Church	1915	East 69th Street
1000 Park Avenue^[1]	1916	Park Avenue and East 84th Street
151 East 80th Street	1922	151 East 80th Street
The Whitby	1924	325 West 45th Street
110 West 86th Street	1924	110 West 86th Street
Chester Court^[2]^[3]	1924	201 West 89th Street
243 West End Avenue	1925	West End Avenue (Manhattan)
Mayflower Hotel	1925	15 Central Park West	demolished in 2004
221 West 82nd Street	1925	221 West 82nd Street
930 Fifth Avenue	1925	930 Fifth Avenue
Ritz Hotel Tower	1925	109 East 57th Street	With Carrère and Hastings. New York's first residential skyscraper introduced terraces at the setback levels.
41 West 96th Street	1926	41 West 96th Street
65 Central Park West	1926	65 Central Park West; Lincoln Square
The Alden	1927	225 Central Park West; Upper West Side
The Oliver Cromwell	1927	12 West 72nd Street
Warwick Hotel	1927	65 West 54th Street
Hotel Benjamin	1927	125 East 50th Street
Manchester House	1928	145 West 79th Street
The Eldorado	1929–1931	Central Park West Historic District
The Beresford	1929	211 Central Park West
300 West 23rd Street	1929	300 West 23rd Street
35 Prospect Park West	1929	Prospect Park; Brooklyn
Hotel St. George	1930	Brooklyn Heights
Hotel St. Moritz	1930	50 Central Park South
784 Park Avenue	1930	784 Park Avenue
The San Remo	1930	145 and 146 Central Park West	The first of the twin-towered residential skyscrapers.
The Ardsley	1931	320 Central Park West	Roth's outstanding Art Deco residential skyscraper.
275 Central Park West	1930–1931	275 Central Park West
299 West 12th Street	1931	299 West 12th Street
140 East 28th Street	1932	140 East 28th Street
888 Grand Concourse	1937	888 Grand Concourse
888 Grand Concourse (1937) (Bronx)	880 Fifth Avenue	1948	880 Fifth Avenue	1938 2 Sutton Place South
41 West 96th Street		41 West 96th Street
310 West End Avenue		310 West End Avenue
The Normandy	1938	140 Riverside Drive	Last of the twin-towered residences, and Roth's choice for his retirement apartment.
Shenandoah Apartments		10 Sheridan Square

Emery Roth & Sons

Despite the fact that Roth's sons, Julian and Richard, had joined the firm many years earlier, it was not until 1947 that the firm's name was changed to Emery Roth & Sons, approximately one year before Roth's death.^[4] Julian (1901–1992) specialized in construction costs and building materials and technology, while Richard (1904–1987) was named the firm's principal architect. In the 1950s and 1960s Emery Roth & Sons became the most influential architectural firm in New York and contributed substantially in changing the appearance of Midtown and Lower Manhattan. In that particular period of time Emery Roth & Sons designed dozens of speculative office buildings, mostly with curtain wall facades, which soon became a ubiquitous feature of the city.^[5] Beginning in the mid-1960s, the firm was also hired as associate architects in large-scale projects like the Pan Am Building (1963), the World Trade Center (1966–1973) and the Citicorp Center (1977). In the early 1960s, Richard Roth's son, Richard Roth, Jr. (b. 1933) became the third generation to join the firm, eventually rising to chief architect CEO and shareholder. As the firm expanded and diversified over six decades, it remained a family business through the 1990s. In 1988 Richard Roth Jr's daughter Robyn Roth-Moise joined the firm as comptroller. Richard Roth Jr's son Richard Lee Roth joined the firm in 1982 and became the chief specification writer for Emery Roth & Sons. Both retired from the firm when Richard Roth Jr retired and was replaced as the company's CEO in 1993 by Robert Sobel, Roth's cousin.^[6] But only three years later, in 1996, the firm ceased to operate, apparently because of financial distress.^[7] Emery's great-grandson Richard Lee Roth currently works in the architectural profession and resides in South Florida.

The extensive architectural records and papers of both Emery Roth and Emery Roth & Sons are now held in the Department of Drawings & Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.