The Seminole (New York City, New York)

 apartment building  Add category

8-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1896 as a hotel. Designed by Ware & Styne-Harde, it opened as the Seminole Hotel. It was converted to apartments in 1968, with 60 units. The facade is clad in orange brick and terra-cotta above a limestone ground floor. The ornate main entrance portico is located just south of center on Broadway; to the north is a modern steel-and-glass storefront, and to the south by another storefront that projects out and wraps around the corner to the south facade, with the projecting portion topped by a low-sloped green canvas roof. The entrance is atop a low, 2-tiered set of steps, with a recessed, modern glass-and-metal door, sidelights, and transom. A pair of polished pink granite columns with Corinthian capitals rise from the low sidewalls of the steps, and carry an entablature with an intricate frieze of foliate ornament topped by a dentiled cornice. On either side, the frieze and cornice continues above the small windows flanking the entrance. These window bays are framed by four pilasters filled by intricate carved classical ornament and having stylized capitals. The windows themselves are framed on the sides and top by thinner, intricate bands of carved patterns featuring circles, with more carved ornament below the sills and above the keystones. The dentiled band course continues across the rest of the ground floor, above the storefronts. At the rounded southwest corner it projects out to follow the bulbous curve, with two carved bases bulging from the facade to carry the projecting, rounded corner bay above.

This bay has two windows on the upper floors, one facing west and one facing south. There are three more windows along the south facade on 69th Street (the eastern two grouped closer together). The west facade on Broadway has a bay of paired windows at the north end, followed by a group of three windows, a single-window, three windows above the entry portico, and two more bays of single-windows. The 2nd floor is banded with five horizontal egg-and-dart moldings and topped by a band course with a smaller egg-and-dart molding along its lower edge. All of the 2nd-floor windows are round-arched and have molded stone surrounds topped by cartouches flanked by cornucopiae, except for the window above the south part of the entry portico. It is a smaller oval window with four compass-point keystones and a ribbon across the top. Guarding the top corners of the portico are a pair of seated lions, each with a paw resting atop a sphere. Above and behind the lions on the 2nd floor wall, between the window bays, are two shields, each with a trio of fleur-de-lis, topped by cartouches.

The windows above the 2nd floor have surrounds with patterns of rosettes edged with egg-and-dart moldings, except for a few. There are smaller windows in the bay above the oval window on the 2nd floor, and each is flanked by paneled pilasters and topped by a cornice with a keystone with filigree ornament. At the 6th floor this bay has a rounded pediment on top, and at the 7th floor there is another oval window. The center bay above the entrance has a broken triangular pediment above the window surround, and at the 5th floor the south bay and the 2nd-from-north bay of paired windows have projecting bracketed sills supporting round, fluted columns with stylized capitals topped by triangular pediments. A band course with a Greek fret-motif frieze sets off the 7th floor, which is banded like the 2nd.

Three ruddy-red metal fire escapes runs down the west facade, the southern one with wider landings, and another fire escape is on the south facade. Both main facades are crowned at the 7th-floor roof line by a black metal roof cornice with console brackets and dentils; the cornice also wraps around the curving corner bay. There is a small, 8th-floor penthouse level on the east part of the main roof, just south of a narrow light well.

The storefronts are occupied by Shakespeare & Company bookstore, Q 10 Nail Spa, and West Side Restaurant.