Fortunoff Building

 office building, commercial building

150-foot, 13-story office building completed in 1913. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, it has also been known as the Fortunoff building. A previous building at this address was the original home of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which opened there in 1872. The building is clad in limestone, and its 2-story base was remodeled last in 2009. The base is divided by limestone piers on low, grey granite bases into a wide center bay and narrower end bays. The main building entrance is in the north bay, with glass double-doors and a small black metal canopy. The center bay has metal-and-glass double-doors with a black metal canopy, flanked by plate-glass display-windows that extend up through the 2nd floor as well. A similar plate-glass window fills the south end bay. The base is capped by a dentiled band course.

The 3rd floor has five bays of deeply-recessed single-windows, with the middle three grouped closer together. Each bay has a grey stone planter box at its base. A small cornice sets off the upper floors, which have the same pattern of window bays, these only slightly recessed, and with thin sill courses across the bases of the windows. The 10th floor is topped by a dentiled band course with a cartouche at the center.

The middle bays are recessed at the 11th & 12th floors, divided by two rounded Doric columns. The end bays have slightly-recessed single-windows is simple moldings. The facade is crowned by a bracketed and dentiled roof cornice at the 12th floor. The 13th floor is set-back and fronted by a sloped mansard. There is a small penthouse level on the roof.

The south elevation, above the shorter neighboring building, is also clad in limestone. It has five bays, with three narrow windows in the middle bays, and two in the east end bay. The west end bay has wider single-windows at the 6th & 7th floors, with double-windows above. There is an extra small window inserted to the right on the 11th floor, and there is a triple-window at the 13th floor.

The rear, east-facing facade is clad in dark-red brick with four bays of single-windows. A narrow metal fire escape with zig-zag stairs winds its way down the south bay.

Until going backrupt, the chain Fortunoff had their flagship store here.

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