50 Broad Street | office building

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242-foot, 20-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1915. Designed by Willauer, Shape & Bready, it has a wing extending through the block to New Street. The Broad Street elevation has a stone-clad 5-story base, above which rises a U-shaped shaft creating the impression of twin narrow towers. The first three floors are organized into three bays by triple-height rusticated pilasters with elaborate capitals - a single pilaster at either end, and pairs of pilasters framing the central bay. Within each bay, the 2nd & 3rd floor have four narrow rectangular windows; the ground floor has its main entrance in the southernmost bay, with storefronts in the other two bays. The entrance is approached by a short set of steps, and surrounded by a rope molding. In the 4th floor, each bay has two square-headed window openings, with ornamental panels with shields marking off the bays, all topped by a modillioned cornice. The 5th floor is similarly designed in the outer bays, but the center bay has an elaborate ornamental panel.

The twin towers are faced entirely in white glazed terra-cotta. Each is two window bays wide, the bays defined by three uninterrupted rusticated piers; each window has an ornamental spandrel panel. The 16th floor (the 11th story of the towers) is transitional, with elaborate ornamental terra-cotta panels at the corners; above it, the next three floors are grouped under a triple-height arcade of two arches supported by columns. A top, attic story is capped by an ornamental parapet. The interior wall of the twin towers are similarly designed, and include angled bay windows.

The New Street elevation has two parts: a 1-story tall, stone-faced section to the north, with a storefront, and a narrow, 2-bay-wide, 20-story tower to the south. The tower is plain in design; each floor has two bays of rectangular windows. There are modest band courses, one above the 3rd floor with a wave motif, another above the 4th floor with a Greek fret design, and there are decorative spandrels separating the windows of the 1st, 2nd & 3rd floors.

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