Emerson Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, commercial building

140-foot,12-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1923. Designed by F.B. & A. Ware for Emerson Shoe Stores Company (who owned the building and had a shoe store on the ground floor), it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 2-story limestone base. The south facade on 40th Street has five bays, and the east facade on Broadway has three. The main entrance is in the westernmost bay on 40th Street, with a set of glass doors next to a set of metal service doors, both under a canopy, the 2nd floor at this bay has metal louvers. The other bays have modernized plate-glass storefronts at the ground floor and large triple-windows below transoms at the 2nd floor. Angled piers separate the bays of the base, which is capped by a similarly-angled cornice.

The upper floors have three windows in each bay, with angled main piers, grey metal window surrounds, and three vertical panels in the brickwork of each spandrel. The angled main piers and flat intermediate piers run uninterrupted to the 12th floor, where the main piers have projecting ornament acting as bases for the paneled stone piers at the top floor, which extend above the roof line. The top floor has a wide segmental-arch across each bay and has an ornate Gothic parapet of pointed-arches and pinnacles across the roof line between each pier.

The west and north elevations are faced in plain brown and beige brick with no openings. The 1st and 2nd floors are occupied by NYGARD Fashions women's apparel, which also occupies most of the adjoining building to the north.