Every building in New York City has a story, from the architecture to the history, that many people just walking by may never know. As part of the Real Estate Report, NY1’s Jill Urban will periodically spotlight various buildings in New York – starting with one gem on the Upper West Side.

Walking down Broadway it’s hard to miss the Ansonia, a grand, palatial structure, with its majestic ironwork and ornate detailing. The Ansonia is a jewel of the Upper West Side and has a history that is as elaborate as the architecture.

“This is really the dowager queen of the Upper West Side,” says architectural historian Christopher Gray. “This giant white frothy mass on upper Broadway, which was originally thought to be a Parisian boulevard, the wild ebullience of it, is just the kind of thing that attracts mythology and these fake stories and the funny things; most of them are true.”

Gray, the author of the Streetscapes section of the New York Times, took us back in time to explain the history of this special property.

It was built in 1904 by William E.D. Stokes. The style of the building is modern French and it was designed to look like four or five French palaces on top of one another.

“What makes Ansonia special from the outside is the light colored masonry, tan brick and white terracotta,” Gray says. “It also has a wild array; it has more ironwork than any other building in New York and the scale of the architectural detail.”

The building's original copper towers were removed and melted down during World War II.

When it opened, the Ansonia was a hybrid – part hotel, part apartment house, and its services included a rooftop farm that offered fresh food for tenants. The ground floor offered grand amenities.

“[It had] a billiard room, assembly room, ball room,” Gray says. “By the time I first remember it, by the 1960-70s, it was the Continental Baths downstairs – a gay bath house where pretty much anything went.”

It was in those Continental Baths where many performers like Bette Midler got their big break. The baths were followed by one of New York’s most notorious nightclubs – Plato’s retreat – a sex club for straight swingers known for its wild nights.

The building later went into decline, until it became a condo in 1992.

Over the years it had some very famous tenants.

“It’s very difficult to document them all, but one group that definitely lived here were the New York Yankees, just before they moved into Yankee Stadium in 1923, including Babe Ruth,” Gray says. “And the team they were going up against are the Boston Red Sox.”

Now, the Ansonia is a high-end condo with street-level retail. The old Plato’s Retreat entrance is now a dry cleaner.

The times and the tenants may have changed, but the impact and the history of this beauty on Broadway will always remain.