Empire Trust Building

 office building, 1904_construction

249-foot, 20-story office building completed in 1904. Designed by Henry Ives Cobb of the Chicago-based firm of Cobb & Frost, it is clad in brick, stone and terra-cotta, with facades on both Broadway and New Street. Its Broadway elevation is tripartite in design, but is also organized on a pavilion scheme, with slightly projecting end bays and a grandly ornamental center. The 4-story base is faced in heavily rusticated limestone forming wide piers. The main entrance has been altered with modern infill and polished black granite on the ground floor, and around the 2nd-floor rounded arch. The 2nd floor is capped by a cornice, above which rises a shorter 3rd floor, also capped by a cornice (but with large modillions), and a 4th floor, all faced in stone.

The 11-story shaft is clad in tan brick. The final bay at either end projects slightly, like a pavilion; at each floor, this bay has one rectangular window set under a projecting lintel supported on console brackets topped by ornamental scrolls. The bay is marked on either side by prominent quoins. The remaining bays on each floor are simple square-headed windows, with each floor set off from the next by a projecting band course of brick and stone.

The brick-faced shaft serves as a foil for an elaborate, almost Baroque, terra-cotta temple-front in the center of the facade. This temple-front rises from the 4th through 8th floor; at the 4th & 5th it embraces five window bays; at the 6th & 7th it embraces three window bays; and at the 8th floor it embraces a single window bay. It is formed by single- and double-height columns with tall bases and elaborate capitals, and includes ornamental swags, wreaths and scrolls. Above the shaft, the top floors are unified by triple-height brick piers supported by, and supporting, projecting cornices. The uppermost windows are set under arches. Above, there is a setback behind which the final stories rise as a mansard.

The New Street elevation is somewhat different in design. Above a 3-story base, there is a deeply-recessed light court; the building shaft on either side of the light court is clad in tan brick, with brick quoins at either edge, and with four square-headed windows at each floor. The uppermost floors are set off by shallow cornices.

The ground floor on Broadway is occupied by RadioShack, Gregorys Coffee, and a Chase Bank branch.

www.google.com/books/edition/Ornamental_Iron_Bronze/Dwx...
archive.org/details/realestaterecord7319unse/page/1374/...