122 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

150-foot, 11-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1900. Designed by Robert Maynicke as a store-and-loft building, it is T-shaped, with wings extending to both 17th & 18th Streets. Each facade is given a tripartite arcaded organization. The design of the rusticated limestone base on Fifth Avenue was borrowed by John B. Snook for the base of his neighboring building at 120 Fifth, creating a continuous base for both buildings. In 2025, a new 11-story section was completed to the west of the original south wing on 17th Street, with the main entrance relocated here from Fifth Avenue.

The Fifth Avenue facade remains the primary facade, using limestone throughout. It has a 3-story rusticated limestone base, an arcaded midsection, and an attic story, capped by a bracketed sheet-metal cornice. At the ground floor, in the center bay, a portico supported by two polished grey granite columns frames a modern glass and metal door, enclosing a vestibule behind.

The 2nd-9th floors have three windows in each bay. The 2nd-floor windows have metal mullions; those above have limestone mullions. The 9th-floor windows are curved to fit the large round-arches. The four limestone pilasters of the midsection have simple bases and impost blocks decorated with egg and dart molding. The three arches are also decorated with egg and dart molding and have large consoles as keystones. Four roundels are situated in the spandrels between the arches. The 10th-story attic is separated from the midsection by a narrow cornice and has paired windows at each bay. A modillioned and dentiled metal cornice caps this facade.

Designed with three bays, the facade at 18th Street maintains the 3-story rusticated limestone base, the arcaded midsection, and attic story. The ground floor has a service entrance, and what was once a projecting show window with rounded corner. Above the ground floor is a tripartite arrangement of two narrow windows flanking a wider one. The mullions are all cast-iron with impressed decoration, above the 2nd floor. The mullions of the 2nd floor are cast-iron pilasters. Louvers and vents fill the 2nd-floor windows of the western bay. The four brick pilasters of the midsection have simple limestone bases and limestone impost blocks decorated with egg and dart molding. The three arches are also decorated, as on Fifth Avenue, with egg and dart moldings and have large consoles as keystones. Four roundels are situated in the spandrels between the arches. A narrow cornice separates the midsection from the 1-story attic. A bracketed metal cornice caps the facade.

The facade at West 17th Street is arranged in three bays like the facades at Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, but it is markedly different because the western bay is recessed, and because each bay has two rather than three windows. The eastern bay has a service entrance, another round-cornered projecting show window to the west, which has also been filled in but still retains its transoms. The cornice and belt courses follow the contours of the building; there are only three roundels at the 9th floor.

The new addition on 17th Street is clad in beige brick above a 3-story base of beige pre-cast stone. The tall ground floor has black metal-and-glass infill with the main entrance having two sets of double-doors below a large metal canopy, with floor-to-ceiling windows on either side. The 2nd and 3rd floors have three bays of punched double-windows with the edges of the stone facade around them beveled inward. Stone cornices top both the 2nd and 3rd floors. The upper floors have three bays of double-windows, with beige stone spandrels between floors in each bay. At the 9th floor the windows are round-arched, and at the 10th floor they are square-headed, above a band course. The top floor is set back above a black metal cornice.

Early tenants of 122 Fifth Avenue included millinery businesses and book and magazine publishers. The building now houses the headquarters of Barnes & Noble. The ground floor is occupied by Pandora jewelry, Microsoft's private entrance, and Parachute Home on Fifth Avenue, where the storefronts retains some of the ornamental Doric columns, and Levain restaurant at the 18th Street wing.