Over a ten year period from 1994-2004, Gans studio renovated and recombined apartments at 404 Riverside for a client as he married and started a family. The first renovation inserted a kitchen and bath into what had been had been the library of the 1904 apartment, which had originally occupied half the entire floor. The renovation also restored the original dining room to the right of the library and living room to the left.
The bathroom was housed in a steel and glass enclosure, which stood independent of the apartment structure. The skylit shower created a kind of theatrical proscenium framing the foyer and the "backstage" kitchen.
Unable to acquire the adjacent apartment, the expanding family bought the remote servant quarters of the original apartment. The renovation created a suite of bedrooms and a bathroom. For several years, the family walked along the public hallway between these sleeping quarters and their first apartment.
The raison d’être of the shower in the foyer was gone and its demolition called for. However, it found new life as a freestanding, outdoor, poolside shower at a friend's country home.