Godfrey Building

 office building, commercial building

225-foot, 15-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1916. Designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon (of the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon), it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story base. The double-height ground floor is mostly faced in dark-grey metal panels with storefront display windows. THe main entrance is at the south end of the west facade on the avenue, with a double-height openings in a beige-painted stone wall, bordered in black stone with a raised notch at the top. The two sets of glass double-doors are topped by a grey granite panel within the border that has bronze lettering reading "729 SEVENTH AVENUE". The two storefront bays at the west end of the north facade on 49th Street have taller display windows than the rest. At the far east end is a metal double service door set in black-painted stone cladding with a vent above it.

The 2nd floor is beige-painted stone with five bays of large tripartite windows; the northern three bays on the west facade, and the western three bays on the north facade are covered by wide digital advertising boards mounted over the facade. The 3rd floor is clad in unpainted limestone, with ten narrower bays on both facades. Each bay has a single-window framed by engaged, rounded columns with stylized bases and capitals, supporting a projecting arcade of small round-arches (two to each window and one at each pier). In place of the capitals at the middle of each window is a lion's head bracket (missing at the two eastern bays on 49th Street as well as four of the bays on the avenue).

The upper floors have a pattern of projecting brick "plus signs" across the facades. Both main elevations have ten bays of single-windows. A vertical digital sign is mounted at an angle on the northwest corner, running from the 4th-13th floor. The top floor is set off by five bays of three smaller arches in an arcade, each flanked by projecting stone brackets. Heraldic shields ornament each pier.

The south elevation has a short return of the patterned brick at the front; the rest is clad in plain brown brick with no openings. The east elevation is the same, except for two single-windows in the patterned brick return at the 13th & 14th floors. The ground floor is occupied by Superdry Store apparel, and I (Heart) NY Gifts. Another large, angled sign is mounted on the roof.