420 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York) | office building

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / Madison Avenue, 420
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183-foot, 15-story office building completed in 1927. Designed by Dennison & Hirons, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone stone. There is a 2-story center opening with a metal-and-glass storefront on the ground floor divided from the 2nd floor's tripartite show-window by an angled signboard framed at top and bottom by short, rounded, metal canopies. The main entrance, with glass doors, is in the south bay, with a display window in the north bay. Both are recessed and have inward-facing scrolled brackets at the top corners, supporting a stone panel with a gently undulating carved design. The 2nd floor has narrow windows in the end bays, with beveled sills above intricately carved panels featuring flowers, spirals, and foliate ornament. The windows and panels are both grouped by fluted, beveled surrounds with carved capitals with similar spiral themes. A simple roundel tops both end bays, with a smaller angled signboard above the middle bay. The 3rd floor has five bays of single-windows, with recessed paneling on the piers in between. Four protruding roundels are located above the pier panels, forming the bases of the piers on the brick upper floors.

The upper floors have the same 5-bay window organization as the 3rd floor, between uninterrupted brick piers. They have simple stone sills and brick spandrels with squares of raised brick. There is a setback above the 13th floor, capped by a dentil course, stepped up slightly at the ends. The top two floors are similar to those below, with roundels above the end bays at the top floor, and a long recessed panel in the middle. The facade is crowned by a roof parapet with stone coping, stepped up in the middle.

The south elevation is clad in red and buff-colored brick, with a bay of 3-over-2 windows at the front edge. There is a recessed light well at the center, with shallow, segmental-arched trusses spanning the 13th & 15th floors; there is a fire escape within the light well. Just behind the light well is a large rooftop mechanical bulkhead. The north elevation is clad in dark-red brick with horizontal bands of buff-colored brick at each floor. It has four bays of paired windows with 3-over-2 sash. The ground floor is occupied by Deli on Madison, with Angelo David Salon on the 2nd floor.
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Coordinates:   40°45'25"N   73°58'35"W
This article was last modified 4 years ago