397 Washington Street

 apartment building, 1896_construction

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6-story Renaissance-revival cooperative-apartment building completed in 1896. Designed by George F. Pelham as a warehouse, its 3-story arcades dominate the upper facade, executed in orange-tan glazed Roman brick; the paired arched windows of the top floor are outlined with a terra-cotta molding, as are the archivolts of the arcade. A paneled frieze and a projecting sheet-metal roof cornice terminate the facades. There is an ornate iron fire escape running down the center of the Hubert Street facade. The red brick piers of the ground floor are banded with granite; intermediate cast-iron piers help support the exposed iron lintel which has decorative bolt heads. A surviving set of folding glazed and paneled wood doors on Hubert Street suggest how the first-story bays functioned prior to the insertion of recent infill.

Joseph H. Beams, a liquor merchant who owned several buildings in the area, purchased the building in 1896, not long after construction. During the first decades of the twentieth century the firm of La Manna, Azema & Farnan, importers of food products, leased the building. Millner & Son, foodstuff suppliers, were in the building in the late 1930s, followed in the 1940s by Archibald Kendall, a dealer of spices and seeds whose painted sign was on the east elevation. A luncheonette occupied the first floor and later the Independent Cordage Company used the upper stories. The building is currently residential.