All Deliveries Here

Some of the world's most fabled and uppity apartment buildings don't give much respect to people who use the service entrance, which is rather curious, if not downright undemocratic.

One conjures a liveried, capped, and scowling guardian at the front door with his arm raised and pointing away: Scat!

Of course, in our gracious city such snooty behavior does not curry much favor with delivery men, tradesmen, porters, supers, and the like.

Many service entrances at luxury buildings are invisible: they either don't exist, or they are around the corner, or down the block, and are often dark holes-in-the-wall with black painted doors beneath barbed wire. A surprising number of pre-war apartment buildings did not build fully on their lots but left alleyways at one side where the servile class could scurry about largely unnoticed.

A few buildings, however, have bucked this haughty trend and managed to have dignified and handsome service entrances.

Perhaps the city's most impressive service entrance can be found at 60 E. 88th St., where the building's front door is at the center of a curved driveway that is grandly flanked by twin pillars surmounted by limestone globes. The western pair leads to a suite of professional offices and the eastern pair leads to the service entrance. Beyer Blinder Belle designed the building in 1985.

At 21 E. 87th St., Emery Roth designed the 1927 building's service entrance with a very nice fan-shaped grillwork above its otherwise routine black gate leading to its service alley. There is also a very handsome small open grill just to the west of the gate, and both the gate and the grill are surrounded by rusticated limestone that almost conceals the barbed wire at the top of the protruding west wall of the service "section."

At 3 E. 84th St., a relatively small, Art Deco-style gem designed in 1928 by Raymond Hood, the service entrance has a simple but quite attractive gate with a diagonal design that is painted gray like the building's window grates.

Across town, the service entrance at 200 E. 86th St. rachets up its Art Deco motifs as its service entrance gate has curves that are almost a reverse of the design of the building's entrance door — a very subtle and elegant touch. Good manners should not be left at the front door and should apply to all who frequent a building as well as to all who pass it. A little architectural grace goes a very long way.

Mr. Horsley is the editor of CityRealty.com.