Warren Building (New York City, New York) | office building, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

 office building, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

7-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1891. Designed by McKim, Mead & White as a stores, lofts and offices building for George Henry Warren, it is faced in Roman brick and marble, and liberally embellished with terra-cotta and marble details. Warren was an investment banker and a driving force behind the Metropolitan Opera, he commissioned the firm of McKim Mead and White to design this building on the corner of Broadway and 20th Street. In 1912, marble columns were removed from the ground floor. When it was completed in 1891, it was home to multiple jewelers, lace makers and other high end stores. However jewelry brought with it some shady characters. Charles Seale & Co., one of the early tenants of the building, lost $35,000 in today’s money, when a gem dealer walked out after signing a memorandum for purchase. When police found him, he had conveinently lost the diamonds.

On Broadway, the double-height base is composed of a modern metal-stone-and-glass storefront with rectangular openings and, in the northernmost bay, a set of metal-and-glass doors which appear to be original; surmounting this is a marble 2nd floor which is punctuated in an ABBA rhythm, where A is a rectangular window capped by a segmental pediment and flanked by intricate consoles and B is a semi-circular arch with a console keystone and tripartite window arrangement behind. A flat band with Greek key motive surmounts the base.

The 4-story midsection shifts the rhythm to ABAB, where A is a single, rectangular window (except on the 6th, transitional, floor which has a round-arched window) and where B is a rectangular window flanked by narrow rectangular openings (except on the 6th floor where B has paired round-arched windows.) All these windows are edged with terra-cotta quoining. The 3rd-floor windows are topped by flat arches composed of decorated terra-cotta panels. An intermediate dentiled cornice with embellished frieze sits atop the windows and is broken by all but one of the 4th-floor windows, which have bracketed pediments. These windows are united, via spandrels flanked by pilasters and decorated with embellished circles, to the bracketed and broken-pedimented windows. Another cornice, with a carved frieze, divides the 5th and 6th floors. On the northernmost bay of the 6th story, swags decorate the wall above the windows.

The top floor of the building sits on a bundled string course and is pierced by square window openings which alternate with rosette-enriched disks and swags. Its dentiled and modillioned entablature features lions' heads along the cornice and acanthus-leaf brackets. The single bay of the chamfered corner duplicates the adjacent bay onBroadway except that at the 7th story fluted pilasters edge the corners and the disks are replaced by pendants.

On 20th Street, the details of the 5-bay facade duplicate those on Broadway; however, the rhythm employed above the ground floor is ABABA. On the 2nd level a large oculus surrounded by a wreath aligns with the middle bay. The western-facing wall is clad in orange-brown brick, with a chimney. At the 7th floor, some of the design details from the main facade turn to corner onto the rear wall.

The ground floor is occupied by Design Within Reach furniture.

dlc.library.columbia.edu/mmw_photographs/10.7916/d8-ecy...
archive.org/details/atlantic-terra-cotta-vol-9-1927-280...