79 Walker Street

 office building  Add category

6-story Italianate/Second Empire-style office building completed in 1869 as a store-and-loft building. Designed by Henry Fernbach, who also designed the nearly identical adjacent building at 81 Walker Street at approximately the same time, its main facade, on Walker Street, is faced in light-grey marble above the ground floor. It has four bays of window openings per story; alternating stories have flat-headed openings or segmental-arches with keystones. Stringcourses, pilasters, molded arches, and quoins are combined in the design to create a layered effect typical of the Second Empire style. An elaborate roof line, consisting of a dentiled and modillioned sheet-metal cornice with a central triangular pediment and embellished brackets, is a further expression of the style. The ground floor is painted white, with squared, paneled pilasters. Historic multi-pane metal transoms remain.

The articulation of the front facade returns for one bay on the Cortlandt Alley elevation. The remainder of the elevation is faced in red brick above a high water table. Stone sill courses mark each story; simple brick pilasters flank the window bays which have stone sills and lintels (some arched). The windows have fireproof iron shutters. A dentiled sheet-metal cornice is placed above a brick corbel table, and a historic fire escape extends across the elevation.

This building typically was occupied by stores and manufacturing lofts. In 1902 it was occupied by a pocketbook manufacturer. The ground floor is currently occupied by Art in General - a non-profit art space founded in 1982 - with the General Manufacturing Hardware Company above.