509 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building, commercial building

249-foot, 21-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1929. Designed by Robert T. Lyons, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story stone base. The ground floor is faced in black granite, with metal, stone, and granite storefront around a central entrance framed in limestone and topped by a cornice, with deeply recessed glass doors. At the east end of the north facade on 53rd Street is a subway entrance and a pair of black metal service doors. The limestone 2nd-3rd floors have five bays along the avenue and four bays on the north elevation, each with a tripartite windows in green metal framing, with slender, green, textured pilasters and green metal spandrels separating two floors within each bay. The stone band course capping the base is lined with blocks of small, fluted chevrons at each pier.

The upper floors have paired windows in each bay. The stone spandrels between the 4th & 5th floors each have three projecting, vertical fins, while those above are brick with horizontal banding above brick lintels and topped with short corbel bands. Air-conditioning vents are cut into some of the spandrels between the 5th-7th floors at those between the 10th-12th. The spandrels between the 12th and 13th floors, and between the 13th and 14th are stone, with single vertical fins and serrated bottoms. There is a setback above the 14th floor marked by limestone caps.

There is a series of cascading setbacks at the top floors, spaced every other floor, with the north half of the west facade and the west half of the north facade setting back slightly farther than the opposite halves. Each setback is marked by limestone caps. A 2-story mechanical setback rises from the main roof line, also clad in brick. The ground floor is occupied by Carmina shoemaker, and Minamoto Kitchoan Japanese dessert shop.