5 East 57th Street

 office building, commercial building

246-foot, 22-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1926. Designed by Emery Roth, it is clad in buff-colored brick, limestone, and terra-cotta above a 2-story base of beige brick with modern infill. A double-height opening fills the west two-thirds of the base, with plate-glass show-windows interrupted by black metal beams near the top and near the west end; a glass door is located at the bottom of the west end. To the right there is a recessed single-door to the lobby area.

The 3rd floor has three bays of large, square windows; four projecting niches line the piers around the bays, each also serving as a housing for a projecting flagpole; carved eagles are perches atop each, with classical ornament (highlighted by rosettes) extnending up the piers into the 4th floor. Below the 3rd-floor windows, between the bases of the projecting niches, are three rosettes in each bay. The stone spandrels between the 3rd & 4th floors each have three panels - the outer ones are simple rectangles with decorative borders, and the center one is a shield flanked by ribbons and topped by scrollwork. Double-height openings span the 4th-5th floor, with the triple-windows in each bay separated by grey-brown metal mullions and by spandrels of the same material between the two floors. The 5th-floor bays are round-arched. The upper parts of the piers are richly patterned, with large, projecting rosettes between the three elaborately carved spandrel panels above the 5th floor.

At the 6th-13th floor, the spandrels are filled with crisp Art Deco panels of grey steel double-X-shapes that stand in stark contrast with the fussy decoration of the lowest and uppermost floors. These floor have double-windows in each of the three bays, each subdivided into 3-over-2 smaller panes. The pilasters between the windows are brick, and the main piers have geometric, vertical patterns. There is a large setback above the 13th floor, where the vertical patterns on the piers are replaced by slightly-angled end sections, with similar pieces on the pilasters between the windows. Elaborate ornament appears above the windows, as the decorative program shifts back from Art-Deco to more of a Gothic style. Each of the slightly-angled pieces extends just above the set-back, topped by small crenelated capitals.Matching ornament marks the 2nd setback above the 16th floor.

At the uppermost floors, the east bay openings are filled-in, although the metal spandrels panels still extend all the way across. Matching spandrels adorn the eastern elevation at the front edge, where there is a bay of paired windows up to the 1st setback, and behind it a bay of three windows up to the 2nd setback. Farther back there are three paired of paired openings that begin at the 13th floor; all are filled with brick, except for two windows inserted at the 18th & 20th floors. There are plain brick spandrels at these bays, except above the 16th floor, where the metal Art-Deco style returns.

There is a final, smaller setback below the 2-story penthouse level. The roof line is marked by finials on the south, west, and east sides. The 2-story base is occupied by David Yurman jewelry.