623 Broadway (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

5-story Renaissance-revival cast-iron mercantile building completed in 1882. Designed by John B. Snook as a warehouse, the Broadway side is completely faced in grey cast-iron, except for the banded stone piers on the sides. The four bays of windows are separated by Doric columns, and the roof line has a bracketed and modillioned cornice, with small rounded extensions above the brackets. At the opposite end of the block, the Mercer facade is clad in red brick above a grey cast-iron ground floor. The windows have flat stone sills and lintels, and there is a corbelled brick and metal roof cornice. There was a tragic fire in 1958, which killed 24 workers at the textile printing plant and underwear factory that occupied the building at the time. It was converted to office space on the upper floors in 1990, and a health club opened in 1998. The ground floor is occupied by a Chase Bank branch.