Vessel Technologies | fashion retailer, clothes store / boutique, townhouse, commercial building

 fashion retailer, clothes store / boutique, townhouse, commercial building

5-story Neo-Classical commercial building originally completed in 1869 as a townhouse. Designed by Thomas Thomas as part of a row of five Italianate houses, it was given a new facade by Edward L. Tilton (Boring & Tilton) in 1903, when the house was purchased by Josephine H. Bissell.

Mrs. Bissell lived in the house with her husband, Dr. Joseph B. Bissell, and their children and sold it shortly after his death. Several prominent physicians lived in the house in the first half of the 20th century. The next owner was Dr. James Ramsay Hunt who lived and maintained an office in the house. In 1943, Drs. Harry Sidney Newcomer and Marian Anastasia Staats Newcomer purchased the house. Gradually the house went from residential to non-residential use. Les Copains, the Italian fashion design house of men’s and women’s clothing, knitwear and accessories, purchased 46 West 55th Street for $4 million in 2001. The clothier occupies the building as its U.S. headquarters and as showrooms for its various fashion lines.

The Bissell House's front facade is clad in red stretcher and black header bricks laid in a Flemish bond pattern above the ground floor, which is limestone. There are two wide granite steps that lead to the front door. The first four floors have a bowed front. The ground floor has a wide molded door surround having the building number (“46”) at the center above the door and is surmounted by a prominent cornice with large block modillions and scroll brackets. The door and window openings at the ground floor were altered in 1987 to accommodate an enlarged door opening that has four paneled wood doors set within a wood return. Light fixtures and bronze plaques (“Les Copains”) are located on either side of the doors.

A 2-story molded limestone window surround at the 2nd and 3rd floors has square pilaster mullions with simple capitals, inset panels between the 2nd and 3rd floors and above the 3rd-floor windows and is surmounted by a molded cornice. There is a molded limestone band between the 3rd and 4th floors behind the cornice that forms a continuous sill for the 4th-floor windows. The 2nd and 3rd floors have triple windows with multi-pane wood casements and multi-pane wood transoms. A flagpole was attached to the sill of the center 3rd-floor window after 1939. The 4th floor has three multi-pane wood casement windows, above the windows is a prominent limestone cornice with block modillions and scroll brackets and a molded band beneath the brackets that form a continuous lintel for the 4th-floor windows.

The 5th floor is set back from the bowed front of the lower floors and has three single-windows with splayed red brick lintels and one-over-one double-hung windows with wood sash. The molded roof cornice is partially constructed of bronze and has four roundels. The visible part of the western facade, which projects beyond the adjacent set-back row house, is constructed of red stretcher and black header bricks laid in a Flemish bond pattern.

www.vesseltechnologies.com/
archive.org/details/landmarksofnewyo0006eddiam_h5l5/pag...