Fanfare for a Common Building

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at an apartment building that’s celebrating its 100th birthday. We’ll also look at a congressional race in upstate New York with a Republican whose rhetoric belies the careful, courteous and pragmatic reputation he spent years cultivating.

Credit…James Barron/The New York Times

“This,” Kenneth Todd said, standing in front of a display wall in the lobby of his Upper West Side apartment house, “is our birth certificate.”

It did not list weight or size. But just as an actual birth certificate would have carried the names of the parents, this one listed two architects. It was the certificate of occupancy for Todd’s building, at 328 West 86th Street.

The late-1924 date prompted Todd, the president of the co-op board, to appoint a committee to prepare for the building’s 100th anniversary. The result was a museumlike gallery in the lobby, including a photograph of the wood-frame house that was demolished to make way for the building. Another photograph, from 1928 — the earliest photo they have found that shows the building — depicts a police officer directing traffic at the end of the block, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.

Tonight the residents will celebrate the building’s 100 years. They have had party favors made — coasters, matches and napkins printed with a logo that they designed. They put the building’s long-forgotten name, Erco Hall, on the doors facing the street. They discovered the name as they dug into newspaper archives, looking for tidbits about the building. “For the life of me, I have not figured out the origin of that name,” Todd said.