Saint Laurent Paris (New York City, New York)

 office building, clothes store / boutique, Art Deco (architecture), commercial building

9-story Art-Deco office/commercial building completed in 1930 for the L.P. Hollander & Company. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon with interiors by Jock D. Peters and Elaine Lemaire, it received the 1931 gold medal for design from the Fifth Avenue Association, an organization of business and property owners. The large, bronze-framed show windows exhibited the latest fashions brought from Europe, and let the passersby see into the elegant modem interiors created by well-known designers Jock D. Peters and Elaine Lemaire.

Its name was changed to the Weber & Heilbroner Building in August 1934, and in December 1939, it was leased for 21 years to Stouffer's for a new unit in its chain of restaurants. Yves Saint Laurent moved here in 2003. Founded in 1961, Yves Saint Laurent is one of the world’s most prominent fashion houses. It was the first Couture house to launch, in 1966, the modern concept of luxury women's prêt-à-porter, in a collection called "Rive Gauche". Throughout the years, its groundbreaking styles have become iconic cultural and artistic references and its founder, the couturier Yves Saint Laurent, secured a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s foremost designers.

The 2-story base has been modernized, most recently renovated in 2015. It is clad in black polished granite at the ends, with black metal service doors. The ground floor at the middle section has glass double-doors to the building lobby and glass double-doors to the retail store at the left, and a plate-glass show-window at the right. A white marble spandrel separate the 2nd floor, which has a band of five large window panes, with a shorter band of white marble at the top, behind the glass.

At the base of the 3rd floor is a continuous stone sill which extends across the midsection. Above this, the building is almost completely intact, including the original steel-framed, casement windows. Five bays wide, the windows are grouped together in the center of the facade, framed by polished black granite around the outside edge of the facade. The windows are set close to the plane of the building, separated from each other by narrow vertical stone piers which rise continuously from the 3rd through the 8th floor.

Embossed metal spandrel panels fill the spaces between the windows at each floor. Above the windows of the 8th floor is an ornamental stone lintel which includes stylized images of fountains and fans. The row of windows on the 9th floor is separate from the others and unadorned. Above the 9th floor the building's parapet rises slightly over the section of the facade containing the windows and is finished across its entire width by decorative stonework composed of stylized swags, draperies and stacked panels.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2124.pdf
archive.org/details/newyork1930archi0000ster/page/364/m...