Gilsey House

1872

Architects: Stephen Decatur Hatch
Address: 1200 Broadway, Manhattan
If you've never stood on the southwest corner of Broadway and 29th Street and looked northeast to where Gilsey House sits, then you're in for a treat when you do make it there. A triple-decker mansard roof with an embedded clock just lords itself over the "NoMad" neighborhood, such as it is (this stretch of Broadway still isn't exactly a hotspot, but it's coming along, slowly). The Gilsey House Hotel, as it was originally called, had the first hotel telephones for guests. Now it's a co-op; the penthouse (which seems to feature the inside of the clock) just sold for 6.9 million, in case you were thinking of moving in.