576 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building, historical layer / disappeared object

11-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1907. Designed by Maynicke & Franke, it is clad in limestone, with a 2-story metal-and-glass base, and an elaborate, 2-story, white terra-cotta crown. The base, renovated in 2017, has large plate-glass show-windows on both floors, with a deeply recessed main entrance at the south end of the east facade that is framed by light-colored pre-cast stone. Double-height grey metal piers divide the base into three bays on the east facade, and five on the north. There is a metal service entrance at the west end on 47th Street. The base is capped by a dentiled cornice.

The midsection has four bays of single-windows on the east facade, and five bays of paired windows on the north. A projecting band course serves as sills for the 4th-floor windows; the rest of the windows have small stone sills. At the 7th floor, the two outer bays on the east facade, and the two bays next to the middle bay on the north facade have projecting stone balconies supported by large console brackets. There is a thick stone post at each end of the balconies with an ornate white metal railing spanning between.

The 10th floor is set off by a band course that projects out further to form balconies at the same two bays on the north facade, and at the middle two bays on the east facade. They have matching brackets and railings to those below. At the corners, the band courses are supported by large brackets with encircling garlands on the piers, extending down onto the 10th floor. The 11th floor's windows are topped by elaborate rounded pediments on scrolled brackets with hanging pendants, and cartouches within the pediments. Between the bays, the piers are paneled and ornamented by elaborate grape vines. The facades are crowned by a frieze with equally elaborate carvings of flowers and other foliate decoration.

The south elevation, above the shorter neighboring building, is clad in tan brick, with three bays of single-windows near the front. In 2024, the building was demolished.

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