43 Bleecker Street | apartment building, 1896_construction

 apartment building, 1896_construction

6-story Neo-Classical cooperative-apartment building completed in 1896. Designed by Ralph S. Townsend as a store, it has four bays of three windows each, clad in banded beige brick above a black cast-iron ground floor. The ground-floor columns are paneled and bracketed, and the metal cornice above has a decorated frieze. The 2nd floor has terra-cotta bands with Greek-fret designs, splayed out above each window. The 3rd-5th, above an egg-and-dart band course, have simple brick branding and metal mullions separating the windows. There are simple brick panels in the spandrels between floors. The top floor is set off by a dentiled cornice with an egg-and-dart course, and has splayed lintels, and terra-cotta torch-and-wreath ornament on each main pier. The facade is crowned by a bracketed and dentiled metal roof cornice with rosettes and masks. The exposed western elevation above the shorter neighboring building is simple smooth stucco, painted white, with a few windows, and a large advertisement on the front half.

By 1930, the building was occupied by many printing establishments, and by a hat block supplier, which remained at this location until the 1970s. In the 1930s, the City of New York's Home Relief Bureau was also located here. After World War Two, many small businesses dealing in items such as sewing machines, dies & jigs, plastics, carbon paper & ribbon, and electronics moved in. The building remained in commercial use longer than most in the area. It was finally converted to cooperative apartments in the late 2000s. The ground floor is occupied by the Lynn Redgrave Theater.