Master apartments, or, as it used to be called, Master building, is a skyscraper that is associated with the name of Nicholas Roerich. If the tourist is interested in the famous artist and mystic, visited the Roerich Museum (107th West street), it makes sense to walk a few blocks to take a look at a skyscraper with a strange and sad story.

Roerich, who came to the USA for the big exhibition tour of American cities, in 1922, became acquainted with a wealthy new York broker Louis Horsham. Admiring the broker fully came under the influence of the artist: he paid his debts, and began to Fund projects guru (including two concessions in the USSR). The main project was the workshop building.

In 1929, on riverside drive, on the site of the old house of Horsham, by architect Harvey Corbett built a 29-storey skyscraper in the art Deco style. It was supposed to cap his colossal Buddhist stupa, at a cost of five additional floors (which Roerich was terribly upset). For the first time in new York we have used a novelty – panoramic corner Windows. The color of the facade cladding changed from dark purple at the bottom to light gray at the top, the building is sought up (now facing faded and covered with mud, and it is hardly noticeable). On the first floor was occupied by the Roerich Museum, which exhibited more than a thousand paintings of the artist, works of Tibetan art, manuscripts. The upper floors were occupied by apartments.

The building officially opened on 17 October 1929. Exactly one week exchange crashed, the Great depression began. The project instantly became unprofitable. Trying to save him, Horch built complex financial combinations, meaning that Roerich did not understand. Rising between the guru and the broker, the tension culminated in an open rupture, and a scandalous trial. Their claims to the artist was and the U.S. government (the prosecution of tax evasion).

The Minister of agriculture in Roosevelt Henry Wallace also initially treated the followers of Roerich. He organized the financing of the expedition to Manchuria to search for plants that will help to cope with soil erosion in the United States. Plants not found, but it turned out that Roerich who dreamed of creating in Manchuria an independent state, led the political game and even entered into negotiations with the Japanese. Wallace from the expedition disowned, and when the Horsham won a judgment against Roerich, made sure that the artist never received a visa to enter the United States. This story had a sequel: letter from the Minister to the guru at the disposal of the Republicans, and they threatened to publish them as proof of "idiocy Wallace".

After all the scandals of the Roerich Museum in the Master building was closed. The house belonged to Horsham until 1971, and then the building was renamed and turned into a housing cooperative. About the connection of the skyscraper with the name of the famous mystic and artist today like only the Foundation stone (on the corner of West 103rd street and riverside drive), which is clearly visible emblem of the Museum. Inside the stone, the figure of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the letter "Mahatma Moria", two Tibetan coins and 17 Mexican dollars.