324 Lafayette Street

 office building  Add category

8-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1897. Designed by Horenburger & Straub with Martin Johnson as a store and warehouse, it is clad in orange brick. The Crosby Street facade has three bays, with paired windows in each bay, except for on the 2nd floor, which has triple-window groups, and the top two floors, which each have three windows per bay. The piers are rusticated from the 2nd-6th floors, and vertically grooved on the top two floors. A dentiled cornice above the 2nd floor sets off the upper floors, which have various patterns in the spandrels between floors. A black metal fire escape runs down the center of the facade.

The Lafayette Street facade is similarly designed, but with four windows per bay on the top two floors. The northern elevation is faced is smooth stucco painted beige, a single window on each of the three top floors. There are two round water tanks of the roof.

By 1911, the building was occupied by light manufacturing, by 1928 by offices and storage, and by 1941 as a factory and stores. It was converted to residential in the 1980s, and renovated in 2003. The ground floor is occupied by Gato restaurant.