Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

133-foot, 12-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1917. Designed by Herman Lee Meader, it is clad in lightly-rusticated white terra-cotta above a 4-story limestone base, the lower two floors of which were resurfaced in polished red granite in the 1980s. In 2012, the building was purchased by Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan, a Jewish educational and social services organization, comprised of 33,000 institutions in over 75 countries, which had been a tenant in the building for the previous 16 years.

The ground floor has a stainless-steel-and-glass storefront, and the entrance to the upper floors at the south end. The 2nd floor, slightly recessed between an outer frame, has three round-arched openings; two narrow ones at the ends, and a wider central arch with two horizontal, rectangular panes at the bottom. Gold lettering across the top of the 2nd floor reads "CHANBAD LUBAVITCH OF MIDTOWN".

The 3rd & 4th floors, framed by limestone outer piers, have projecting windows bays with three flat middle panes, and angled end panes that recess back behind the piers. Each window has aluminum framing, with very slender, reddish colonnettes between the panes, and similar-colored spandrels between the two floors. Both piers have stylized capitals supporting an ornate carved frieze with urns at the ends.

The terra-cotta upper floors have a middle bay of triple-windows, also divided by slender colonnettes, and end bays with single-windows. The spandrels have abstract fret patterns. A projecting cornice above the 10th floor is supported by small brackets with human faces at the two narrower intermediate piers, and larger brackets (also with human figures) at the main end piers. At the top two floors the end piers have rounded inner edges formed by engaged columns, and the intermediate piers are also rounded columns. Cartouches mark the tops of the end piers, with a carved frieze running between them, and a modillioned roof cornice capping the facade. The ground floor is occupied by Skechers shoes.