156 Franklin Street (New York City, New York)

 apartment building, 1874_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

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7-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1874 as a 5-story store-and-loft building, designed by Griffith Thomas. In 1897, Stein, Cohen & Roth were enlisted to enlarge to building to its present 7 floors and erecting a new facade. At the original 1-story base, the facade displays intact cast-iron piers and engaged columns, crowned by a sheet metal cornice, and historic wood doors and transoms. Roth's design for the altered facade consists of a midsection and a crown. The midsection is defined by tall white brick piers with stone capitals and a cartouche-adorned segmental arch, which frame windows with ornate spandrels and mullions; the 2nd floor has a projecting bay. At the crown, 6th-floor windows are flanked by brick piers and surmounted by a bracketed sheet-metal cornice; the simple 7th floor is pierced by three window openings. A black iron fire escape zig-zags across the facade, extending up above the roof line.

Among the first tenants of the building was the Eisner & Mendelsohn Company, vendors of bottled water; remnants of that firm's signage are evident above the 4th floor. Later tenants include a distributor of dairy products. The building was converted to residential in 1994.