177 Franklin Street

 office building  Add category

6-story Neo-Grec office building completed in 1888. Designed by Frederick Jenth as a 5-story building; two years later an additional floor was added by architect Robert Callack, while the building was being used as a candy factory. At the grey-green painted base, surviving features include cast-iron piers from the Lindsay Graff foundry (indicated on two clear foundry marks), a pressed-metal cornice with modillions, and paired wood doors with transoms. The upper floors are clad in red brick. The windows of floor 2-4 are flat-headed, with rounded stone lintels and sills with corbelled feet. The top two floors have segmental-arched windows with brick headers and stone springers and keystones. The 5th floor has the same corbelled sills, while the top floor sills have no feet. Narrow stone stringcourses connect the sills and lintels at each floor. At the top is a brick corbel table and a simple metal roof cornice.

Among the building's occupants were the Newark Cheese Company and Sante Foods. In the mid-1900s, the upper floors were converted to residences and the office of an electrical contractor, while the ground floor housed the China Brilliance Corp. The upper floors are now offices, with the ground floor occupied by Shinola handmade watches.