63 Spring Street

 apartment building  Add category

5-story Renaissance-revival residential building originally erected in the mid-1800s as a store and factory, and then completely redesigned in 1897 during the widening of Lafayette Street, at which time its use was changed to manufacturing. The alterations were designed by architect Julius Kastner. It is clad in variegated brown and grey brick. There is a ornate, black wrought-iron fire escape on the Lafayette Street facade, and both facades are topped by a black metal bracketed roof cornice. The Spring Street facade has three bays, while on Lafayette, there are four bays of paired windows, with a wider space between the two windows of the 2nd bay from the north, and an additional two bays of narrow single windows at the north end. The 2nd-floor windows have continuous rough stone lintels; in the spandrels between the 3rd & 4th floors are panels of carved square blocks, and more rough stone lintels above the 4th floor's windows, set below a dentiled band course that serves as sills for the top floor. The building’s upper floors were converted to artists’ live/work space in the 1960s. Ricky's MD Urgent Beauty Care currently occupies the ground floor, and a large advertising sign has been installed over the upper floors on the south facade.