359 West 54th Street (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, commercial building

6-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1900. Designed by C. B. Meyers and Monk & Gillies, it actually consists of two separate, side-by-side buildings with matching facades. They are clad in beige brick above various ground-floor storefronts. The matching west facades on the avenue each have four bays of single-windows on the upper floors. The 2nd floor is banded with stone and has full stone surrounds at the windows, topped by tall, elaborate keystones with acanthus leaves. A leafy cornice caps the 2nd floor.

The 3rd-5th floors have regular brick quoins at the edges, with splayed lintels with keystones at the windows. A cornice sets off the top floor, which has round-arched windows with keystones, and paneled end piers with Ionic capitals. A black metal fire escape runs down the middle bays of both facades, which are crowned by a pair of bracketed black metal roof cornices.

The wide south facade on 54th Street has the main residential entrance, near the center between storefronts. It has a metal-and-glass door up a few brick-and-stone steps, slightly recessed in a delicate molding. To the immediate left is a high-set window (actually breaking up through the base of the 2nd floor), with a very short, black metal service door below it, and another metal service to the west.

The upper floors are basically symmetrical, with a central bay above the window and low door, with single-windows set between each floor level, with an interior stairwell behind them. These windows have dentiled stone sills with small brackets bearing rosettes, and are topped by splayed lintels with keystones. There is a bay of matching windows on either side, set at normal floor height. Outside of these, the 2nd floor has an elaborate vertical stone panel with detailed carvings, and then there are paired windows and a single-window end bay, matching those on the west facades. The 2nd floor is also banded here. Like the west facades, there is a cornice above the 2nd floor, and quoins at the edges of the 3rd-5th floors, with splayed lintels and keystones topping the windows. One major difference is the large wreath swags encircling the scrolled keystones that end the cornice below the top floor at the edge of the center section. The top-floor windows are round-arched, and have dogstooth patterned panels between them. The roof cornice also carries onto this facade. On the 4th floor, between the west end bay and the paired windows on the west side there is a carved stone panel bearing the date 1900, framed by elaborate carved ornament. The ground floor is occupied by F&D Pawnbrokers, El Centro restaurant, Double H smoke shop, and Chelsea Juice.