Rouss Building

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160-foot, 12-story office building completed in 1890. Designed by Aldred Zucker as a store for Charles Broadway Rouss, a self-made millionaire. He came to New York heavily in debt after the Civil War, before making millions and erecting this building. He legally changed his middle name to honor the street that took him from rags to riches. Zucker also designed a number of loft buildings around Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

The building spans through the block to Mercer Street, with four bays of three windows each. It is clad in white stone, with banded piers. A stone cornice tops the 2-story base, with "CHARLES BROADWAY ROUSS" spelled out below it. A slightly-projecting cornice tops every other floor, with the piers at every other floor topped by a carved capital. The windows within the bays are separated by thin Corinthian columns. At the top two floors, the piers change from banded to vertically grooved. The building is crowned by a roof cornice with circular ornaments between the brackets. Atop the cornice, a scrolled pediment in the center bears the name "ROUSS BUILDING" and the dates 1889 and 1900. On either side a tall, sharply-peaked dormer rises above a balustrade, with a carved lion's head and slate shingles on the sides.

The back side of the building on Mercer is clad in red brick, with slightly-projecting piers dividing the facade into four bays of three windows each, with connected stone sills and lintels. The top-floor windows are round-arched. The entire southernmost column of windows, as well as the five northernmost, have been completely bricked-in. On the north side of the rear roof, another high-peaked dormer rises above the roof line.

The ground floor is currently occupied by Hugo Boss and Sephora.

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