435 West 54th Street

 apartment building, 1885_construction

5-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1885 as one of a row of four similar tenements. It is clad in red-painted brick. A central entrance is located atop a low stoop; the wood-and-glass door and sidelight are framed by grey pillars supporting an entablature. There is a large window to either side, with iron grilles, and a dogstooth-patterned band near the tops of the windows. Below the west window is a gate and stairs descending to a basement entry.

The upper floors have four bays of single-windows with grey-painted stone sills and flat stone lintels. The shoulders of the windows (and bases at the 2nd & 3rd floors) are joined at each floor by various bands of patterned brick, except at the 2nd floor where a continuous dogstooth band runs above the windows. Grey stone bands running along the brick bands are also present. Black iron fire escape landings front the outer bays on each floor, extending from the neighboring facades. The building is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with brackets, modillions, and panels, with a stepped up center, above a corbelled brick band course.