Gunther Building | apartment building, commercial building, French Renaissance (architecture)

 apartment building, commercial building, French Renaissance (architecture)

6-story French-Renaissance residential building completed in 1882 as a commercial building. Designed by Griffith Thomas 1872, the building has the name of a prominent 19th-century furrier emblazoned in an arch over the corner entrance bay. There are rolled glass windows above it, which curve 90 degrees at the intersection of Greene and Broome Streets and actually get smaller as the floors get higher, a trademark of French Empire cast-iron buildings. At that time, curved glass was extremely rare so it was used as a prominent feature to showcase the status of the building's owner. The ground-floor columns have fluted bases; they and the paneled pilasters on the upper floors all have Corinthian capitals, and divide the Greene Street facade into six bays, and the Broome Street side into 11 bays. The bases of the 2nd-floor bays are lined with low balustrades.

Above the center of the ground floor on Broome Street is a broken triangular pediment, with white metal balconies on the floors above it. At the 4th floor, there are 2-bay wide projecting stone balconies each supported by three brackets flanking the central metal balconies. There is another such balcony on the 3rd floor of the Green Street elevation. The windows at the corner bay actually curve, and the building is crowned by a bracketed and modillioned roof cornice. The ground floor is occupied by Isabel Marant boutique.