17 White Street | apartment building, 1860s construction

 apartment building, 1860s construction

6-story residential building completed in 1868. The building is crowned by a slate mansard roof characteristic of the Second Empire style. The upper-floor windows of the front facade are segmental-arched, with those on the eastern half having full stone enframements, and the other half separated by squared pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The top-floor windows on the eastern half are round-arched. The entire ground floor is painted black, and a black metal fire escape runs down the center of the main facade, which has a bracketed and dentiled black metal cornice below the mansard roof. The eastern elevation of the building, visible from the adjacent parking lot, is faced in brick, red on the lower half and brown on the upper, and has been punctured with several window openings.

In the 1940s the building housed a manufacturer of mirrors. Currently residential at the upper stories, the building is partially occupied at the ground floor by the Soho Photo Gallery.