Postal Life Insurance Building | office building, bank

 office building, bank

188-foot, 17-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1915. Designed by York & Sawyer, it was originally called the Postal Life Building. It was later the Columbia Bank Building, then Guaranty Trust Company of New York Building, and Israel Discount Bank of New York has occupied the entire building since the 1960s.

The facades are clad in limestone, with the north elevation on 43rd Street spanning eight bays (including a deeply-recessed easternmost bay), and the west facade on the avenue having four bays. The 2-story base consists of tall round-arches at the ground floor. The architraves have scrolled keystones and doubled rope moldings, and the piers between the bays (which rest on grey granite bases) are also outlined in rope moldings. Most of the arches have plate-glass infill, except for the southern bay on the avenue, which has the main entrance, consisting of glass doors below black metal infill decorated by an abstract tree surrounded by various sizes of leaves and stones, and the easternmost of the main bays on the north facade, the bottom half of which is filled by a black stone panel with two pillars of symbolic carved stones. Above each pier and between the tops of the arches are circular stone medallions with laurel moldings, and alternating designs of shields centered in the circles. A band course, with dentils and a wave motif at the top, runs below the 2nd floor, which has paired windows; there are elaborately carved stone pilasters between each window. The broad 2-story piers framing the ends of the facades are fluted, with Corinthian capitals supporting an entablature atop the base.

The transitional 3rd floor has paired, round-arched windows, with similar carved pilasters in between and fluted pilasters at the ends of each pair. Small rosettes decorate the spaces above the shoulders of the arches, and cartouches ornament the corners of both facades. A dentiled band course sets off the mid-section, which has paired, square-headed windows, also with carved pilasters between them, but without any kind of surround. The middle bays at the 4th floor has a stone panel flanked by cherubs above it, and heraldic shields on the piers around the middle bay. Another pair of shield appears on the same piers, at the top of the 8th floor, and also on the next piers over at the 6th & 10th floors.

The 13th floor is marked by a dentiled band course below (with a shield and garlands at the center), and an elaborate frieze above, with foliate panels bearing shields. The main piers also have intricate carvings around shields. The 14th-15th floors have double-height, non-rusticated piers, and elaborate spandrels between the two floors, decorated with swags. The 16th floor is plainer, with simple paired windows without ornament.

Above a projecting, dentiled band course, the top floor has rows of triple round-arches in each bay, divided by slender colonnettes, and the building is crowned by sloping metal roof, pierced by shallow rounded dormers (five on the north side, two on the west and one on the east side), rising to a central ridgeline.

The recessed easternmost bay on the north facade has one column of single-windows at each floor, except for the top two, which have smaller paired windows. This bay is topped by its own sloping metal roof, broken by a chimney. The east-facing elevation in front of the recessed bay has one bay of paired windows, with the band courses from the main facades continuing onto it. At the top floor, the round-arches also continue, but in two groups of two, instead of three. The extreme east elevation, facing the narrow alleyway, is clad in red brick, with a bay of single-windows. The exposed upper floors of the south elevation are faced in beige stucco, with a bay of single-windows at the front edge. There is also a gable of the metal roof near the center, and mechanical equipment to the right (east).

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