212 East 48th Street (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, 1924_construction

9-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1924. Designed by John H. Duncan, it is clad in dark-red brick above a limestone base that occupies most of the ground floor, changing to brick near the tops of the windows. They are arranged in five asymmetrical bays, with (from east to west) single-windows, two bays of paired windows, smaller paired windows, and single-windows. Those on the ground floor have iron grilles, and those above have stone sills. At the ground floor the main entrance is tucked into the west end, with a wood-and-glass door and sidelight in a white stone frame, covered by a rounded green canvas canopy. There is a black metal service door at the far east end.

The 2nd floor is topped by a stone band course, which ends before the west end, where there is some replacement brick above the entrance. At the upper floors the west bay is shifted slightly farther over to the west, and except for the smaller paired windows, all the windows on the 3rd floor have iron railings across their bottom halves. The facade is crowned by a cream-colored metal roof cornice with brackets and dentils.

The front section of the east elevation is clad in brown brick with red brick at the edges, and has one bay of single-windows. There is a light well at the center, which is clad in white-painted brick, along with the rear section. The light well has bays of paired and single-windows, and the rear section has another bay of single-windows, with an extra window at the south end of the top floor. The west elevation is surfaced in beige stucco with no openings. Mounted on the wall is a 3-story vertical chess board that actually belongs to 767 Third Avenue next door. The building contains 46 apartments.