Ever since it officially opened in 1880, Riverside Drive has promised bigness: spacious lots, roomy mansions, and towering prewar apartment houses with expansive views across the Hudson River.

A small, light-colored building situated on a hill of rocks, flanked by larger, brick buildings in a cityscape. The scene is in black and white.

So how did this one-story stub of a house end up on the south corner of Riverside Drive and West 107th Street, nestled snugly among its neighbors and perched on top of a leftover pile of Manhattan schist?

It doesn’t have the grandeur of the prewar apartment building behind it, nor does it feature the stylish bow front of the row house it sits against, which was completed in the early 1900s.

A small, modern house with a flat roof, situated on a rocky hillside, featuring a staircase leading to the entrance and surrounded by a few shrubs.

And it’s got nothing on the French Renaissance masterpiece (third image) across the street. Built in 1909 for Turkish tobacco magnate Morris Schinasi, this magnificent palace is one of only two remaining free-standing mansions built during Riverside Drive’s Gilded Age heyday.

But the little house was indeed a real house, with an actual address at 328 West 107th Street. And its short-lived presence on the Drive has to do with a Gilded Age deed, a thwarted developer, and the 1930s emergence of prefabricated houses.

Black and white photograph of a historic building at the corner of a street, featuring elaborate architecture with decorative elements and awnings over the windows.

The story of 328 West 107th Street begins in 1936 with real estate developer Carlo Paterno.

Paterno’s family company had already constructed more than 140 apartment buildings on Riverside Drive and West End Avenue. In 1936, he set his sights on the rocky, hilly corner of 107th Street, intending to put up a new structure.

But his plans were foiled by an 1897 deed, which included a clause that the first building erected on this lot had to be a one-family residence. This made sense in the 19th century, when a single-family home was a mark of status. By the 1930s, well-off New Yorkers preferred apartment living.

Black and white photo of a city skyline featuring a mix of modern and older architectural buildings, with several skyscrapers towering over a distinct lower building area.

So Paterno came up with a workaround. For $3,000 he purchased a prefabricated “workman’s house” from a company called National Houses, which had a two-story demo model on display at Park Avenue and 39th Street—captured in this 1936 Berenice Abbott photo above.

The prefab house was designed by William Van Alen, the architect of the Chrysler Building. Yet aside from its bolted-together steel walls, 328 West 107th Street had nothing in common with New York’s iconic skyscraper.

Painted white, the prefab house that now occupied the corner had four windows, five small rooms, and many steep wood steps reaching the front door. On the plus side was a small backyard and air-conditioning, still a novelty in New York City homes.

A view of a multi-story residential building with a brick facade, surrounded by trees and a clear blue sky.

In 1937, the first tenant moved in: Thomas Dewey, then a prosecutor and soon to be governor of New York. “He took the place as a hideaway for meetings with detectives, underworld informers, and the like, only to find that nine-tenths of the time a knock at the door just meant sightseers,” wrote The New Yorker.

After Dewey left, Carleton Alsop, described by The New Yorker as a radio executive, became the next tenant, paying $100 a month. “Mr. Alsop, who is a large, amiable young man, says that he likes the place because there’s a little back yard for Orel of Warrendane, his Great Dane puppy.”

Eventually Alsop vacated, and 328 West 107th Street was marked for destruction.

“The house came down in 1941, and in 1950, the restriction satisfied, another developer put up the present plain boxy six-story apartment building,” reported the New York Times in 2010. It looks like that developer also took down the bow-front row house neighbor.

Black and white photograph of a house on a rocky lot beside tall buildings, with a sign displaying '1892 - 32 M' in the foreground.

Riverside Drive in its early days had its share of wood shanties left over from an era when part of today’s Upper West Side was a hardscrabble enclave for New Yorkers on the margins.

But in terms of an actual house with an address and paying tenants, I’d say the prefab steel cottage at 327 West 107th Street qualifies as the Drive’s most lilliputian residence.

For more stories of Riverside Drive’s early days, sign up for Ephemeral New York’s Gilded Age Riverside Drive walking tour! We’ll explore the Drive’s secrets, stories, and rich, sometimes strange history.

September’s tours are scheduled on Saturday, September 12, Sunday, September 20, and Sunday, September 27. Hope to have a great turnout!

[First, second, and sixth images: New York City Department of Records & Information Services; third image: MCNY, 1909; x2010.28.118; fourth image: Brooklyn Museum]