The Master was built as a shrine to theosophist Nicholas Roerich. It has aged strangely. matthewsedacca reports on its history, its residents, and the 35-pound sulcata tortoise that recently moved onto the third floor
Photo: Frankie Alduino Contents History | The People Who Live There | The Tortoise on the Third Floor | Who Killed Frank Horch | The Building's Lecture Series | How to Get an Apartment Here | It isn’t readily apparent that the entirety of the Master Building, an imposing 28-story Art Deco skyscraper on Riverside Drive, was built with a single person in mind, though there are subtle signs: the 25-foot stupa on top, shaped like a stair-stepped pyramid; the cornerstone, inscribed with a circle...
In the early ’30s, the building started to feel the effects of the crash. The Master fell into receivership, and soon the Horches and the Roerichs were on the outs. The courts ultimately gave the building to Horch, who in turn shuttered the Nicholas Roerich Museum and booted Roerich loyalists from their apartments.
Shortly after Horch’s death in 1979, the family sold the building. A few years later, the Master underwent a co-op conversion. Building-wide ownership kick-started the upscaling. In 1996, the building’s board initiated renovations — repointing the exterior, restoring the entrance’s cornstalk detailing, and installing sleek elevator doors with a geometric motif.
A Sulcata Tortoise Recently Moved Onto the Third Floor In March 2016, one tenant found himself unexpectedly living with a 35-pound sulcata tortoise. Here, his story. Theory 1: “The killer had to have known the boiler room was one of the only spaces Frank would go where the gunshots would be muffled, and the police found cigarettes the killer was probably smoking while waiting. My take? He was in way over his head with money.” —Elliot Shapiro, a resident and retired criminal-defense attorney
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