Postum Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, Neoclassical (architecture), 1925_construction

262-foot, 21-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1925. Designed by Cross & Cross with Phelps Barnum, it is clad in buff-colored brick and terra-cotta above a 3-story limestone and terra-cotta base. The main, east facade, facing Park Avenue, is nine bays wide, with a central entrance under a rounded brass canopy. Each of the double-height bays has three black metal spandrels separating the two lower floors, and the three middle bays have very slightly recessed surrounds. The windows at the 2nd floor have metal mullions dividing them into threes, with another mullion in the center, further diving the center window. At the bays without storefront entrances, the mullions similarly divide the ground-floor windows. Brass-and-glass light fixtures are mounted at each pier between the spandrels.

The 2nd floor is topped by a narrow, dentiled, rounded band course. The 3rd floor has two windows in each bay, separated by carved terra-cotta panels with an elaborate foliate design. The base is capped by a cornice with larger dentils, with a cartouche rising up in the center. A modern touch - a large curved brass pipe ornamental element - spans most of the three middle bays and supports the top of the cartouche.

Above the base the three middle bays are set back, while the outer bays continue vertically to setbacks above the 16th floor, creating two wings. Each wing has slightly lighter colored brick at the outer edges, and vertical bands of dentils framing the four windows and piers running up the middle. This framing ends at the top of the 13th floor, except for around the outer edges of the four middle windows, where it continues for two more floors. These two floors have thin terra-cotta pilasters flanking each of the four middle windows, with projecting lintels topping each one. The top of the 16th floor on both wings is capped by a dentiled cornice above a frieze with alternating swags and medallions. In the inward-facing side walls of the two wings both have two bays of single-windows.

The recessed center bays match the wings, but with three bays of paired windows in the dentil-banded section instead of four single-windows, again flanked by plainer single-windows at the ends. The dentil framing extends to the 15th floor here, with the same cornice and frieze extending across the top of the 16th floor.

Above the wings, the 17th floor is similar to those below, while the 18th-19th floors has slightly recessed sections (corresponding to the dentil-framed sections below) where each window is separated by 2-story fluted Corinthian columns topped by dentiled band courses. The 20th floor has simple, almost-square windows and is capped by a cornice with a row of small, closely-spaced brackets, surmounted by a brick and stone, balstraded parapet. The top floor is set further back, also clad in brick, but housing mechanical equipment.

The west facade on Vanderbilt Avenue basically matches the east facade, but without the central setback or main entrance. At the 3rd floor, instead of the elaborate terra-cotta panels between the windows, there are panels of brown brick. At the ground floor the three middle bays have service entrances with metal doors, and there are metal louvers below the black metal spandrels in the south bays.

The north and south facades are five bays wide, but otherwise match the design of the main facade. The ground floor is occupied by DOI Camera, an HSBC Bank branch, People's United Bank, and Devon & Blakely restaurant.

www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID016.htm
archive.org/details/newyork1960archi0000ster/page/1072/...
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086591925&v...
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086591925&v...
books.google.com/books?id=ja3b_V1yVv0C&lpg=PA99&...
hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015022636024?urlappend=%3Bseq...
usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1929-06-1.pdf
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086699298&v...