FREQ (E. & J. Burke Building)

 night club, commercial building

8-story Neo-Renaissance commercial building completed in 1913. Designed by Thomas J. Huff as the headquarters of the E. & J. Burke Company, a brewing company founded by Edward & John Burke in 1849 in Dublin. The building served as headquarters and for storage only briefly, however, until 1922, when the company moved its Prohibition-era enterprises from Manhattan to Long Island City, Queens. E&J Burke resumed brewing operations in the 1930s, after Repeal, but despite the company's strong ties to Guinness, its fortunes never fully recovered. The company ceased operations in 1954. From 1996-2004 the building was occupied by the second incarnation of Sound Factory, and then housed Pacha New York, a humongous, multilevel relative of the renowned Ibiza dance club, until 2016. It is most recently occupied by the massive 5-story club FREQ.

The building's facade is clad in variegated reddish-brown brick, painted brick-red at the ground floor. At each end is a large, segmental-arched loading dock with a roll-down metal gate, now painted black, both next to a pedestrian entrance atop a small set of steps. The middle of the ground floor is slightly recessed, with four entry bays, each with its own larger set of steps.

The shorter 2nd floor has six bays of square, black metal vents in the middle, and two single-windows at each end, all of which are topped by beige stone lintels. One of the window openings on the west side has been filled-in. The upper floors are set off by a rounded limestone band course, and have trios of windows in the middle bays (the taller ones at the 3rd floor are partially filled by metal vents) and thinner, paired windows at the ends, also with beige stone lintels. At the 7th floor the middle bays have smaller windows that are topped by brick round-arches with keystones. There are similar window and arches at the outer bays on the 8th floor.

The middle section of the facade sets back above the 7th floor, where there is a broad limestone band carved with the lettering E.& J. BURKE with a copper cornice and a sloping roof with two copper finials. The outer bays extend up to the top floor, forming pavilions crowned by rounded limestone string courses surmounted by brick parapets.

The west and east facades are also clad in brick, with some scattered single-windows at the back half.

pachanyc.com