Lafayette Towers

 condominium  Add category

 Upload a photo

160-foot, 14-story Neo-Classical residential building completed in 1928 as an office building. Designed by Maximilian Zipkes, it has a 3-story limestone base, and upper floors clad in buff-colored brick. The north facade on Walker Street is divided into a wide center bay and two narrower end bays. The west facade on Lafayette is more complex; in the center it has a narrow, 1-window bay flanked by 2-window bays. On the north end of this facade is a 3-window bay, while the south end is divided into three very narrow windows at the upper floors, with the southern two grouped together. On the base, this bay has two narrow windows at the outer edges, with a stone cartouche in the center at the 2nd floor, above the main ground-floor entrance which consists of stainless steel doors and frame topped by a stone panel reading "LAFAYETTE TOWERS" and a peaked stone pediment supported on console brackets, with an ornamental stone shield and floral carvings in the center. The rest of the ground floor has large storefront windows and is capped by a cornice. The 2nd-3rd floors have slightly-projecting pilasters between bays, and stone spandrel panels with diamond shapes in their centers. The 3rd floor is also topped by a cornice.

At the upper floors, the center bay on Walker Street has four windows per floor, and the outer bays have three, each bay separated by a wide pier, and each window by a narrower brick pilaster. Some of the brick spandrels have diamond shapes. Both main facades continue this pattern up to the top floor, where the windows have white metal frames and the main piers have projecting vertical grooves. These piers extend above the crenelated roof line and end in peaked triangles.

The exposed upper portions of the south and east-facing walls are clad in plain brown brick. The building was converted into condominiums with 17 units in 2014. The ground floor is occupied by New Sau Voi convenience store, Walker Liquor & Wine, and Jenny's Souvenirs.