Pennsylvania Building

 office building, high-rise, 1925_construction, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

274-foot, 22-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1925. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is also known by the pseudo-address 14 Penn Plaza. The main facade is on 34th Street, clad in brown brick above a 3-story limestone base; at its center is a grand 2-story entrance set between a pair of polished red granite Corinthian columns supporting a round-arch lined with interesting, abstract geometric carvings. The brass-and-glass doors are covered by a brass canopy, and there is black metal tracery in the fanlight beneath the arch. On either side the limestone piers sit on grey granite bases, and have brass light fixtures, with larger ones flanking the entrance, and flagpoles above those. The other ground-floor bays have modernized storefronts. The 2nd & 3rd floors have intricately carved stone spandrels. Above the entrance, the 3rd floor has three windows in the center, flanked by two more groups of three windows, while at the 2nd floor there are instead a large group of four joined windows. The next bay to the outside is slightly recessed and has three windows at both floors. The end bays are narrow, with single-windows, and project slightly. All of the windows and window groups have dentiled stone sills. A band course caps the base, decorated with a row of circles above the two recessed sections.

The brick upper floors mirror the projecting and recessed bays from below, with the piers sprouting from stone, stair-stepped pyramid shapes at the bases. The windows are smaller, with stone sills set between the piers. The four windows at each end stretch up to the 14th floor, above which are four 2-story pairs of Corinthian columns with rounded pediments at the 16th floor, where there are setbacks. Additional setbacks occur above the 18th floor, where there is a corbelled cornice. Also set back are the two bays at the ends of the middle section, at the 17th & 18th floors; the 18th-floor windows at this bay are topped by stone round-arches. 2-story matching columns and pediments highlight the three center bays from the 19th-20th floors, flanked by small, steeply-angled roofs at the 19th floor. There is a deep setback in the center above the 20th floor, and smaller setbacks at the ends, where the end-bay windows are topped by stone round-arches. The roof line has a crenelated parapet, with stone round-arches at the top-floor windows of the end bays and the two windows at the ends of the center section.

The narrower north facade on 35th Street is four bays wide, clad in dark-brown brick above a 3-story limestone base. The ground floor has service entrances and storefronts. The 2nd-3rd floors have large tripartite windows in each bay with brown metal mullions; some on the eastern side are replaced with metal louvers. The upper floors have paired windows, set wider apart in the two middle bays. At the 9th floor the two end bays have corbelled sill courses and short cornice segments at the piers. Above each window is a stone diamond shape and a corbelled round-arch. Above the arches is the first setback; the end bays continue to set back at every floor above. The middle section has projecting corbelled arches over the outer windows at the 10th floor, with a setback at only the outer half of these bays. There is a narrow round-arched window in the half-bays above, with another setback. The middle two bays have round-arched windows with corbelled arches at the 12th floor. Like the end bays, these series of setbacks continue at every floor above to the 20th, where a larger setback leads to the main T-shaped tower portion further south.

The east and west side elevations are clad in brown brick at the southern portion of the facades. The northern two-thirds are narrower and clad in lighter brick. At the southern portions there are darker brown brick spandrels and the 16th-floor windows are round-arched. On the western elevation, the two northern bays of the southern section are filled in with dark-brown brick. At the northern section of the west facade, most of the bays have triple-windows, except for the northernmost bay, which is clad in darker brown brick and has double-windows above the first setback on the north facade, and a single-window at the 18th floor, where this bay ends. The 19th-20th floors on this elevation have large round-arches filled in with dark brick. On the east elevation, the northern portion has either triple-windows or smaller windows in pairs.

The ground floor is occupied by Cohen's Fashion Optical, and Jazz Gifts, with Madman Espresso, and Amida Care health insurance agency on the 35th Street side.

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