Butler Hall

Butler HallLocation: 2018 Sedgwick Avenue, Block: 3222, Lot: 62, Bin# 2100242.

Status: Never landmarked or heard.

Description from the Bronx Survey

Butler Hall, located on the Bronx Community College campus (old N.Y.U.) represents a vernacular interpretation of the Italianate style with later alterations. The two-story red brick building was designed in a square plan with a projecting three-story entrance pavilion, its front doorway set within a round-arched opening. A mansard roof caps the pavilion and is broken by a triangular pediment rising from the pavilion wall.

Round-arched windows are tall and narrow, and some are grouped in threes in a vaguely Palladian manner. A simple, bracketed cornice caps the structure, and the corners are defined by paired brackets. The steeply pitched mansard roof is punctuated by large, flat dormers which may be later additions. Butler Hall was originally built for Henry W.T. Mali, Belgian Counsel General in New York.

He and Gustav Schwab had bought adjoining parcels of land (Mali’s was a forty acre plot), and both men had their houses built by day labor without an architect. Plans were supplied by the builder, a Mr. Truby. The houses were probably built at the same time which sets a possible construction date of 1857 (the known date of completion for the Gustav Schwab house.)

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