Warby Parker

 commercial building  Add category

3-story mercantile building originally completed in 1871 as a townhouse. The facade was altered in 1926 by L. E. Denslow. It is clad in grey-painted brick; the ground floor has a black granite water table, and plate-glass display windows. There is a metal-door service entrance at the east end on 50th Street, and retail entrances at the corner. A broad, white lintel band runs across the ground floor.

The upper floors have three bays of windows facing the avenue, and eight bays along 50th Street. All the 2nd-floor windows have thin stone surrounds, and the 3rd floor has stone sills. The middle 2nd-floor window on the west elevation is topped by a beige, stone round-arch. A stone string course runs along both facades just below the brick roof parapet, which is capped by a stone coping. The building is occupied by Nine West apparel.

Around the turn of the century, the building was owned the Boronowsky family and converted to commercial use. At the time of the planning and subsequent construction of the surround Rockefeller Center, beginning in the late 1920s, the owner of this little building was John F. Maxwell, who refused to sell or negotiate. The 4-story building at the south end of the block was a similar holdout, and Rockefeller was forced to building around the two. The ground floor is occupied by Warby Parker eyewear.

untappedcities.com/2014/09/02/10-nyc-architectural-hold...