NYU 838 Broadway (New York City, New York)

 university, office building, Second Empire (architecture), 1877_construction

6-story French Second Empire-style office building completed in 1877 for Mitchell, Vance & Co. Designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch as a store with a cast-iron facade, the building also has a frontage on East 13th Street. Various garment-related firms occupied the building in the early 1900's. 836 Broadway was built on the site of James J. and Cornelia Roosevelt’s town home. James, a well-respected judge and Congressman, was also the great-uncle of President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

The Broadway facade (pictured) is the more elaborate of the two facades. It is organized with three major bays: two sets of doors and store windows at the first story, pairs of windows at the second through the fifth stories, and three window dormers at the mansard roof level (sixth story).

At the first story, piers support an arcade with shallow arches edged with decorative rope-like trim. The major pilaster-piers appear continuous vertically from the second through the fifth stories because their stylized capitals extend over the belt courses. The pilaster-piers then terminate at the building cornice, each with a decorative bracket, similar in design, but larger than the cornice brackets. The narrower secondary pilasters function like mullions between each pair of window openings.

The mansard roof is clad with slate shingles and the dormer windows exhibit highly developed enframements and decorative details not exhibited elsewhere on the building. The center dormer window unit consists of a pair of shouldered windows, engaged fluted columns, and a segmental-arched pediment topped with an acroterion. Within the scalloped-edged tympanum is a scrolled plaque. Flanking the center bay are single-window dormers, each with an enframement of pilasters, entablature, and triangular pediment.

The building has frontages on both Broadway and East 13th Street, three bays wide with paired windows in each bay on Broadway, and four bays wide on 13th Street. The cast-iron is painted brown, with a black ground floor on 13th Street. The 2nd & 5th floors have segmental-arched windows; the 3rd & 4th floors have rounded corners. A black bracketed cornice tops the 5th floor. Above a steep black mansard is broken by a wide central dormer with two windows and a rounded pediment, and two single dormers with triangular pediments. On the 13th Street facade, the far left windows at each floor is filled-in, and the projecting cornice is missing from the eastern bay at the 5th floor. The steep mansard is broken by four window pairs without dormers or pediments.

The ground floor on Broadway is occupied by Hyde Park Antiques. The upper floors are leased by NYU for offices of the University Development & Alumni Relations and School of Professional Studies staff.

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/06/1877-mitchell-va...
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2618.pdf
gvshp.org/blog/2019/07/19/836-broadway-a-cast-iron-beau...