In addition to the ample apartments, the Ansonia featured a grand ballroom, several cafes, tea rooms, writing rooms, a lobby fountain with live seals, a palm court, a Turkish bath and the world's largest indoor swimming pool. These amenities enticed many famous cultural personalities to take up residence in the building. The Ansonia's enormous bulk is somewhat reduced by its complex massing and its intricate ornamentation. Light courts break up the monumental facade and allow the maximum amount of light and air to penetrate the interior.

The Ansonia is typical of the standard of luxury applied to turn of the century apartment buildings on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

With seventeen stories and 300 suites, the Ansonia is covered with ornament and balconies, marked by beautifully scaled corner towers, and topped by mansards in the very best French tradition.

Despite the proliferation of ornamentation, the effect of the whole is one of lightness, grace and elegance. The tiers of windows, recessed courts and rounded towers establish a sense of the vertical, while a series of balconies emphasize the horizontal.

The extensive ornamentation and lacy ironwork combined with the smooth panels of the brick work creates a dramatically elegant surface.

The Ansonia was constructed with heavy, all masonry fireproof materials with heavy interior partitions to separate the individual apartments, thus making them virtually soundproof as well.