50 West 57th Street (New York City, New York)

 office building, commercial building

211-foot, 16-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1927. Designed by J. Lawrence Raimist, it is clad in brown brick above a 2-story limestone base in blocks of slightly varying shades of a light cream-color. There are entrances in both end bays, with metal-and-glass double-doors below decorative lintels. A large, double-height center bay has glass-and-metal infill with its own sets of double-doors opening into a retail area. This bay is framed by bronze bands with classical patterns across the top, centered on a shield flanked by griffins. Above the entrances at the end bays are carved medallions, with projecting flagpoles mounted above them. The 2nd floor has single-windows in the end bays, and a very wide tripartite window in the middle. The base is capped by a projecting, dentiled stone cornice with three wide brackets in the middle and narrower paired brackets at the ends, each with a carved gargoyle. Stone plinths extend up from each bracket above the cornice onto the 3rd floor.

The upper floors have six bays of single-windows between slightly-projecting brick piers, except for the 3rd floor, which has two bays of triple-windows in the middle, and single-windows at the end bays only. The windows have stone sills and brick lintels. The end bays set back above the 11th floor, capped by ornamented and arched stone lintels, with stone capitals on the end piers. Matching caps and lintels top the middle four bays where they set back above the 12th floor; there are angled side walls at the 12th floor end bays. The two outer bays on each side set back again above the 14th & 15th floors, with somewhat simpler stone caps on the piers, and the middle two bays also set back at these levels, with stone lintels bearing different decorations.

The west elevation is also clad in brown brick (with several vertical bands of redder brick) and has two bays of single-windows towards the front. The rear edge shows the four setbacks along the south-facing facade. The tall ground floor is occupied by Mangia restaurant and catering, with the 2nd floor occupied by Salon Ziba.