443 Greenwich Condominium

 condominium, Romanesque (architecture)

7-story Romanesque-revival office building completed in 1884, with an expansion on the eastern side of the lot completed the following year. Designed by Charles C. Haight as a warehouse. Together, the two building sections enclose a large interior courtyard. Haight's design for this large building of orange brick with sandstone elements is influenced by the interpretation of Romanesque elements found in the German round-arched style. The building has a monumentality reinforced by subtle variations in the facade planes, emphasized by multi-story pilasters with corbelled brick capitals which extend as a corbelled stringcourse. There is a corresponding variation in the placement of the round-arched window openings. The facades are crowned by an attic story with closely-set square-headed windows separated by pilasters and a corbelled brick parapet. At the 1-story base, brick archivolts accent the round-arched openings. Secondary cast-iron piers and brick piers with sandstone capitals frame entrance bays from which cornices have been removed. Some bays have historic wood casement windows and pairs of paneled and glazed wood doors.

For the eastern half, rather than replicate the design of the western half, Haight emphasized the structural qualities of the orange brick facades of 34-38 Vestry Street in the manner of late nineteenth-century commercial designs, using multi-story piers for vertical articulation and continuous sandstone lintels uniting pairs of windows and corbelled brick courses to provide horizontal counterpoints. Above the attic story, the Vestry Street cornice is stone while that on Desbrosses Street is corbelled brick. At the 1-story base, stone-banded piers with brownstone capitals and secondary cast-iron piers frame bay openings, some of which still have historic window configurations. In each facade arched passageways, filled with wrought-iron gates (which provide access to the courtyard) and window openings are accented with brick archivolts, echoing the design of the adjacent earlier building.

Long-term tenants in the building included the Semon Bache glass company and the American Steel Wool Manufacturing Company. Later occupants of the building included several bookbinding and electronics firms. It was converted into condominiums by CetraRuddy Architects for Metro Loft Management.

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