Young & Rubicam Building

 office building, skyscraper

335-foot, 27-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1926. Designed by Rouse & Goldstone, it was originally known as the Murray Hill Building, before taking the name Young & Rubicam for the advertising agency that owned and occupied it. The interior was designed by Theo. Hofstatter & Co. They remained here until 2013, when they moved offices to Columbus Circle following an elevator accident that killed a company executive. The move was announced prior to the accident, however. After their departure Studios Architects performed alterations in 2014 to both the interior and exterior.

What is unusual about 285 Madison are the free-hand carvings of people that surround the ground-floor show windows. A seafarer, a tennis player, a jockey, a mermaid with a seaweed crown, a crossbowman, a World War I doughboy, a boy with a slingshot, a fisherman — there is no other individualized sidewalk carving on this scale in New York.

The building is clad in brown brick above a 3-story limestone base. The west facade on the avenue has eight bays, while the south facade on 40th Street spans nine bays. The piers have low, grey granite bases with beveled sides. The beveled edges of the ground-floor bays are lined with grey moldings decorated with various, small, incised figures. Most of these tall bays contain modernized glass storefronts. The main entrance is in the middle two bays on the avenue, deeply recessed with a pair of revolving doors in a glass wall. The ceiling and side walls of the entry are white-painted stone in a honeycomb pattern; a brown, square column splits the front of the entry. The far east bay on the south facade has black metal infill with a service entrance. The 2nd floor has tripartite windows set in grey-painted beveled-edge bays, and the 3rd floor has paired windows with a continuous sill course and a dentiled cornice capping the base. The 2nd & 3rd bays from the south on the west facade are grouped together at the 3rd floor (and above), appearing as a single bay of four windows. The 2nd & 3rd bays from the west on the south facade have the same grouping. Two flagpoles project from the top of the 2nd floor of the west facade, at the edges of the main entrance.

The upper floors continue the paired windows (and groups of four at the bays next to the corner bays) from the 3rd floor, with uninterrupted piers and simple brick spandrel panels. On the west facade, the four northern bays set back above the 13th floor, capped by a modillioned cornice. The two bays flanking the double bay with four windows have round-arched windows at the 14th floor, where they set back, marked by dentiled cornices and urns capping the end piers. The double bay extends up to the 16th floor, where it also has round-arched windows and a setback; the area above the arches is stone, with carved medallions, and a shallow, modillioned triangular pediment marking the setback. There are angled sides to the double bay at the 15th & 16th floors, creating a slightly-projecting corner tower; the modillioned cornice on the pediment continues across the rest of the facade.

At the 17th-19th floors there are again angled corner bays with one window per floor. The corner bays and the double bays have round-arched windows at the 19th floor. A stone band course topped by balustrades marks the setback running across the 19th floor, with urns and gargoyles at the piers framing the corner tower. At the 20th-22nd floor the southwest corner bay is replaced by an octagonal column; the angled bays on the west and south facades still have one window per floor. The double bays (which form the corner tower) have round-arched windows at the 22nd floor, where the setback is marked by a stone cornice with balustrades on the corner tower portion.

The corner tower narrow to three windows on both sides at the 23rd-25th floor, where the rest of both facades ends at the lower roof line with round-arched windows and blind arcades marking the roof line. The corner tower also is topped by blind arcades, with eagle gargoyles projecting below the arcades. A 2-story penthouse rises from the corner, with one set of paired windows at each facade, round-arched on the 27th floor, where they are grouped under a larger arch and corbelled, peaked pediment. Large mechanical equipment sits on the lower roof at the north wing of the building.

The north facade also has paired windows, in five bays at the lower floors, narrowing the three bays at the 25th-floor roof line, which has round-arched windows and a continuation of the corbelled cornice. The upper part of the east elevation, visible above the neighboring building, also has bays of paired windows, dropping off at the setbacks. The ground floor is occupied by Dos Toros restaurant, Popular Community Bank, and Benjamin Prime Steak House.

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