Architect
Centurion, 1900–1956
Born 7 July 1869 in Detroit, Michigan
Died 18 October 1956 in Southampton, New York
Buried Green-Wood Cemetery
, Brooklyn, New York
Proposed by Robert W. de Forest and Edward H. Kendall
Elected 7 April 1900 at age thirty
Archivist’s Note: Son of Charles L. Atterbury
Seconder of:
Century Memorial
Grosvenor Atterbury graduated from Yale in 1891, and went into the Columbia School of Architecture. After a year there, he went to Paris and studied at the Beaux Arts. In 1894 he came back to New York and began to practise as an architect.
He was employed by the Russell Sage Foundation to lay out and design Forest Hills, the model town in Queens. This was not only a great success, but very interesting: even the railroad station, the post office, and the bank are in the same unusual style of all the other buildings.
Atterbury then developed a specialty in town planning, industrial housing, and model tenements, and became recognized as an expert in these fields. He saw that some prefabrication (at that time unknown) would effect important economies, and he devised a hollow building block that was used extensively in low-cost housing and finally became very important. Besides this somewhat earthy enterprise, he served as a consultant in architecture at Johns Hopkins and as an associate professor at the Yale School of Architecture.
He lived a long time, and was a member of the Century for 56 years. In his prime he knew all the amusing and lively people of the City, and was held in high regard. He was an amateur painter of considerable skill, and he always used to have a picture or two in the fall show at the Club. Everybody liked him and wished him well, and what he put his hand to he drove through to success.
George W. Martin
1957 Century Association Yearbook
