401 Washington Street

 condominium, 1906_construction

7-story Neo-Renaissance residential building completed in 1906. Designed by Maynicke & Franke as a 6-story warehouse, its tripartite structure, with red brick upper facades, is dominated by 4-story arcades with paired segmental-arched windows set into the recessed walls between the pilasters. The tripled round-arched windows of the top floor are underscored by a limestone sill course and crowned by a red-tinted terra-cotta cornice with large modillions. The ground floor is clad in painted limestone and has wide loading bay openings; several of these openings have been sealed and those near the corner of Washington and Laight Streets were later remodeled as an office entrance.

The warehouse was built for the Ragus Tea & Coffee Company. The company remained in the building through the 1910s, followed by the James Butler Grocery Company. In 1945, the building was converted into a factory for paper cutting and processing, before being used as a warehouse for the Eagle Transfer Corporation up to the turn of the century. A renovation beginning in 2010 converted the building into residential use as condominiums. A 1-story garage next door was demolished and replaced by a new building designed to replicate this one, completed in 2015. As part of the project, 401 Washington received a new, recessed penthouse level on the roof.