Fountain Gallery (New York City, New York)

 interesting place, 1860s construction, art museum / art gallery

A row of six 4-story rowhouses completed together in 1869. In 1985, the four eastern brownstones were purchased by the neighboring Fountain House self-help organization and converted into the van Ameringen Center, providing increased space for the group's charitable efforts. In 2000, the remaining two buildings were added and the renovated complex was named Fountain Gallery.

Fountain Gallery is the premier venue in New York City representing artists with mental illness. The gallery sells original artworks and collaborates with a wide network of artists, curators, and cultural institutions. Embracing artists who are emerging or established, trained or self-taught, Fountain Gallery cultivates artistic growth and makes a vital contribution to the New York arts community. In 2014 Fountain House College Re-Entry opened its doors at 437 West 47th Street to help students that have discontinued their college plans due to mental health obstacles.

The window arrangement of the facade has been shifted, but the six original roof cornices mark the location of each original facades. They are all faced in brownstone, rusticated at the ground floor. The western two buildings retain their high stoops leading to matching, round-arched parlor-floor entrances with green, paneled, wooden, double-doors and keystones in the simple moldings. Next to the stoops, the English basement levels have two windows set above low openings with iron grilles. There are round-arched doorways with iron gates in the sides of the stoops for entry to the basement level.

At the other facades, the four stoops have been replaced by three ground-level entrances with white wooden doors, double-doors at the easternmost entry. A small landscaped areaway between each entrance is enclosed by a black iron fence. There are no windows at the ground-floor section of the eastern facades. The 2nd-floor (parlor-floor) windows at the eastern facade are shorter than on the two western sections, and grouped as (from the east): three windows, four windows, and three windows. Nearly all of the upper floors are covered in climbing ivy, even covering the six brown metal roof cornices, which have brackets, panels, and modillions.

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