166 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

7-story Northern Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1900. Designed by Parfitt Brothers, it is faced in stone and buff-colored brick. The plate glass and grey marble storefront and entrance are more recent. The silver metal numbers 166 are attached above the doorway.

The 2nd floor has three recessed bays containing paired windows with transoms articulated by stone pilasters with Beaux-Arts style ornament supporting a band course. The spandrel panels above are of buff-colored brick. The 3rd and 4th floors continue this pattern, but the windows are without transoms. On the 5th floor molded segmental-arches with keystones spring from short pilasters, supporting the bracketed metal cornice. The aluminum-framed windows in the arches have a central fixed pane with one-over-one side windows and transoms with seven fixed panes which fill the curve of the arch.

The 6th and 7th floors are articulated by an elaborate Northern Renaissance Revival 2-story stone gable embellished with urns and volutes, crowned with a large shell. The three windows of the 6th floor are flanked by pilasters on pedestals. The 7th floor has a stylized pediment with a round portal. Sloping up behind the gable is a 2-story mansard roof clad in metal and punctuated by two dormers with triangular metal pediments.

The south elevation, seen above neighboring buildings on Fifth Avenue, is of exposed brick punctuated by a single window. The ground floor is occupied by Eileen Fisher apparel.