8 East 41st Street | office building, commercial building

 office building, commercial building

8-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1921. Designed by S. Edson Gago & Donald G. Anderson for Joseph McGarrity, it is clad in light-grey terra-cotta above a 2-story limestone base. The ground floor has a black metal-and-glass storefront on the left and entrance on the right, framed by wide piers, and the 2nd floor has a band of four windows.

The upper floors have framing piers with recessed centers; at their bases they have Gothic ornament. Each floor has four windows, separated by slender colonnettes, and each spandrel panel has three narrow pointed-arches. At the 7th floor the four bays are grouped under a shallow pointed-arch, above which is a cornice with an arcade of round-arches, framed at the piers by a pair of projecting cylinders, octagonal in form, trailing elaborate bases and capped by Gothic spires that frame the four shallow-arched windows of the top floor. At the top of the facade is a stone band with a row of carved gargoyle faces and a metal railing; rising from the end piers' spires are two stone drums flanking the parapet and rising above the railing, topped with spread-winged gargoyles.

Joseph McGarrity died in on August 5, 1940, and the building was purchased by the Julliard Musical Foundation, which sold it in 1943. The United Hospital Fund owned it until July 25, 1956 and in 1960 it became the Mexican Consulate General. Difficult times followed after 1964, as sanctions were levied against Cuba, with Mexico announcing opposition to all sanctions, which was not well-received by Cuban exiles. In three separate incidents, small bombs were exploded in front of the consulate, on April 22, 1968; February 5, 1978; and September 12, 1981. None of the bombs caused very serious damage, however. Today, things are much quieter, with the Mexican consulate having relocated and various small business occupying space in the building.