6 Varick Street (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, 1881_construction

11-story Neo-Grec/Queen Anne-style cooperative-apartment building completed in 1881. Designed by George W. DaCunha as a 9-story warehouse building for Francis Leggett, an influential businessman and owner of one of the country's largest importers of groceries, tea and coffee. Today, the building is residential, housing co-op apartments, with two penthouse floors added on top.

The facades display the bold, linear articulation of the neo-Grec style in combination with more intricate and complex detailing that characterizes the Queen Anne style. Originally the building had three imposing, and very similar, facades. In 1914, as part of the widening of Varick Street, the western half of the building was demolished and a brick wall with simple openings was erected on the new western building line. The West Broadway and Franklin Street facades share a 1-story base, a 7-story midsection, and a 2-story upper section. The 1st floor consists of granite-faced piers which once flanked loading bays. The midsection, sheathed in brick and trimmed in stone and terra-cotta, is articulated by smooth and incised piers flanking bays with flat-headed, round-arched, and segmental-arched window openings. Slightly projecting corner "towers" add further weightiness to the design, with the southeastern "tower" designed to be slightly more prominent. An overscaled cornice and corbel table, into which the 8th-story windows are fitted, unites the exterior.

In 1923 a 1-story extension was added at the west side and it was increased to two levels in1934; by then the building was used as stores and a factory. Other alterations were the insertion of 10th-story windows within the top of the structure and the addition of an 11th story along a part of the west side of the building. After its association with the Leggett grocery firm ended, the building was known as the Comet Warehouse Building; later occupants included All America Cables and Radio, Inc. and the Mackay Radio & Telegraph Company. It was converted to residential usage in the late 1980s. The ground floor is occupied by Franklin Cleaners, Pecan fine foods and coffee, Franklin Caffe Buon Gusto, Terra restaurant, and Sweet Lily Natural Nail Spa & Boutique.