Lefcourt National Building (New York City, New York) | office building, skyscraper, Art Deco (architecture)

 office building, skyscraper, Art Deco (architecture)

503-foot, 40-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1929. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 4-story granite base. The west facade on 5th Avenue is five bays wide, and the south facade on 43rd Street spans nine bays. Despite the 5th Avenue address, the main entrance is on 43rd Street, in the 3rd bay from the east. It has been modernized with glass doors and a stainless-steel canopy. Directly above is an Art-Deco styled pale green panel, with metal numerals "521" for the address. The far eastern bay and the 4th bay from the west have service entrances, and the rest of the bays have plate-glass storefronts. Those on the east side are topped by metal louvers, while those at the west (and on the avenue) are joined to the 2nd-floor storefronts by light-grey metal spandrels with dark grey framing. There is a suspended metal-and-glass canopy over the ground floor's three middle bays on the west facade.

The 3rd floor has oversized windows in stainless-steel frames, above metal vents. They are double-windows in the middle three bays on the west facade, and triple-windows in the end bays. On the south facade, they are (from west to east): double-windows, triple-windows, five bays of double-windows, triple-windows, and a final bay of double-windows. The 4th floor, separated by paneled stone spandrels, has the same organization of window bays, only with shorter panes. The piers are ornamented with bas-relief carvings of rams' heads. Inscribed on the middle three bays of both facades, just below the dentiled band course that caps the base, is "LEFCOURT-NATIONAL BUILDING" in a serif font.

The brick floors above the base either have paired windows or three windows in each bay, corresponding to the width of the bays at the base. At the three middle bays, the south facade is set back above the base. Between each window is a brick spandrel with four vertical grooves. The narrow pilasters separating the windows in each bay project at 45-degree angles in some of the bays (the end bays on the west facade, and on the south facade, the middle of the three western bays, and the all three of the eastern bays).
The western three bays on the south facade and the outer bays on the west facade (plus the outer half of the adjoining middle bay) set back above the 12th floor, while the rest of the middle bays set back above the 14th floor on the west facade. At the eastern three bays on the south facade, the outer ones set back above the 14th floor, while the middle one sets back above the 16th floor. At each setback the windows are topped by a stone lintel with a geometric pattern of overlapping triangles. Additional setbacks occur above the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 21st floors. The 21st-floor setback at the west end is the deepest, with the upper part of the tower rising vertically from this point to the smaller setbacks around the crown of the building.

The windows bays on the upper shaft are similar to those below, with the same spandrels. The west facade has a paired-window bay in the middle, projecting out from the single-window end bays. The south facade has two bays of paired windows at the west end, with a paired-window bay to the east projecting out, and a bay of triple-windows farther east projecting further still, before recessing to a final easternmost bay of paired windows. The north facade matches the south, with the farthest-projecting bay (with triple-windows) setting back above the 35th floor., where the projecting middle bay on the west facade also sets back. The less-projecting adjoining bays on the north and south facades recess back to the main shaft of the tower above the 37th floor, where there are beige terra-cotta capitals at the piers and Art-Deco spandrels above the windows.

At the crown the 38th-39th floor are set back, with large, double-height windows in five bays on the north and south sides, and three bays on the east and west. The edges of the wide piers have stepped-bevels receding to the inset windows, and more beige terra-cotta Art-Deco ornament caps the 39th floor. The top floor is similar, but smaller, with only three bays on the north and south, and a single bay on the east and west. More Art-Deco terra-cotta forms a roof parapet with mechanical equipment behind and rising above it.

The east facade is windowless below the crown at the outer bays, with a shallow central light well that has a single bay of windows at its south edge. The ground floor is occupied by Urban Outfitters apparel and accessories, and Equinox fitness.

usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1930-06-1.pdf
usmodernist.org/AM/AM-1934-12.pdf
archive.org/details/architecturalrec67aprnewy/page/n140...
archive.org/details/towerclocks00seth/page/22/mode/1up