38 West 48th Street

 office building, commercial building

11-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1926 as a manufacturing building. Designed by George & Edward Blum, it is three bays wide, clad in buff-colored brick above a 2-story white-painted limestone base with a grey granite water table. The main entrance is in the west bay, in a double-height round-arch; the glass fanlight is separated from the metal-and-glass double-doors by a stainless-steel panel. The east side of the ground floor has a metal-and-glass storefront between green-painted framing columns, with two large plate-glass panes at the top. The 2nd floor has square double-windows in all three bays, and is capped by a band course with a frieze decorated with a flower and vine pattern.

The upper floors have double-windows divided by black metal mullions between the slightly projecting brick piers. Brick spandrel panels have five vertical recessed bars, the middle one in each spandrel slightly wider than the others. The two end bays set back above the 8th floor, marked by geometric ornament and pyramids topping the outer piers. The center bay rises to a matching setback above the 9th floor, and the end bays have additional matching setbacks above the 10th floor. The roof line features the same ornament as the setbacks.

The east elevation is also clad in brick with five bays of paired windows and four vertical stripes of red brick. There are mechanical penthouses at the front-west part of the roof and the rear-east side, the latter topped by two round water tanks. The ground floor is occupied by Reilly's Plates & Pours.