131 Mercer Street

 apartment building  Add category

6-story residential building completed in 1869 as a 5-story store building for the cabinet-making firm of Gustave Herter of the Herter Brothers interior design company. The top floor was added in 1881. It has a blue-painted cast-iron ground floor with elaborate floral designs and rosettes in the middle of each pier. There are twin entrances in the outer of the five bays, with triangular pediments above the doors and set below the base's cornice. The upper floors are clad in buff-colored brick; the 2nd floor has horizontal banding and a stone cornice. The windows of the 5th floor are round-arched with keystones, decorative capitals on the piers, and topped by another cornice. The facade is crowned by a projecting metal roof cornice. The building was converted to residential use in the late 1900s. The ground floor is occupied by A.P.C. apparel store, with a brilliant blue-painted cast-iron storefront.