411 Lafayette

 office building  Add category

6-story Northern Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1892. Designed by Alfred Zucker as a warehouse, its 5-bay facade is topped by an elaborate cornice with terra-cotta gable and finials. The 2-story base has silver cast-iron columns with beaded bands and stylized capitals; three of the columns are wider, with squared sides and rounded corners, while the other three are thinner round columns. The spandrels between the two floors have silver beaded bands and foliation on a blue background. The 2nd floor has three round-arched windows per bay, and is topped by a cornice.

The upper floors are clad in tan brick, with decorative brownstone bases and terra-cotta Ionic caps on the piers, and decorative terra-cotta banding across the top of the 5th floor. The paired windows in each bay are divided by small cast-iron colonnettes with Corinthian caps. Between the piers and floors are paneled brick and terra-cotta spandrels. The top floor has three windows per bay, with the facade crowned by an elaborate roof cornice with terra-cotta gable and finials. At the second bay from the south, there is also a triangular gable ornamented with terra-cotta.

In 1902, the building was occupied by a manufacturer of men's clothing. In the 1930s, its ground floor was used as an automobile showroom and repair shop, and its upper floors were converted from manufacturing lofts to offices in the 1980s.

It is currently owned by Himmel + Meringoff Properties. NYU occupies the 3rd-5th floors for office space for the College of Arts & Sciences and Steinhardt schools.

www.winickdaily.com/2011/09/15/ny-inc-three-new-leases-...