353 Lexington Avenue

 office building  Add category

15-story office building completed in 1926. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is clad in brown brick above a painted stone water table. The north facade is five bays wide, with a central entrance, slightly recessed atop a couple of steps, with glass double-doors below a grey-brown clamshell canopy. It is flanked by narrow pilasters with scrolled brackets carrying a stone cornice and balustrade that fronts the base of the 2nd-floor window at the middle bay. To the east the ground floor has a restaurant space clad in black-painted wood, with a rounded black canvas canopy extending out from its doorway. To the west are two plate-glass windows; these have stone surrounds that extend up to the 2nd floor as well (all of the 2nd-floor double-windows have stone surrounds). There are also brick panels below the two eastern bays of the 2nd floor, with stone shields.

The 3rd floor is set off by a dentiled stone band course, and topped by a thinner string course. All of the upper floors have double-windows. At the 3rd floor they have brick surrounds with stone imposts and arches across the tops with keystones. The floors above have simple brick sills until 13th floor, which has a string course below and a dentiled band course on top. The top two floors have 2-story stone surrounds at the windows, and brick panels between the floors at each bay. The roof line is marked by a stone cornice, with curved stone pediments at the outer bays.

The west facade on the avenue is similarly designed, but only four bays wide, and with brick quoins at the edges. The ground floor has two modernized storefronts, occupied by a Bank of America branch, and Bon Bon Hair Salon. The south elevation is clad in brick, less uniform in color, and has three bays of single-windows, the middle one smaller, without ornament. The east end of the ground floor on 40th Street is occupied by Peter Dillon's Pub.