Western Union Telegraph Co. Building

 office building, Queen Anne style (architecture), 1883_construction

7-story Queen Anne-style office building completed in 1883. Designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh for the Western Union Telegraph Company, it is faced in red brick, with white-painted stone, and red terra-cotta details. The building served as their branch office. A pneumatic tube system extended from this uptown address to the Western Union headquarters at Broadway and Dey Street.

On Fifth Avenue, the ground floor has a modernized glass-and-metal storefront that removed the lower portion of the arched 2-story main entrance on Fifth Avenue. The upper portion of the stone-trimmed arch remains at the 2nd floor under a decorated terra-cotta belt course. The 3rd floor establishes the 2-bay organization which carries through to the 7th floor. A black iron fire escape runs down the facade in the southern bay. In each bay of the 3rd floor is one pair of segmental-arched windows with a wide stone mullion and quoins. The 4th floor has paired square-headed windows with stone quoins and patterned brick mullions which rise above the window to frame a semi-circular raised-brick decoration, which rests on the window lintels. The 5th floor is similar to the 4th, except that there is no patterned brick above. A narrow stone belt course caps the 5th floor. The 6th floor has one arched replacement window with a stone enframement in each bay. Below the stone belt course between the 6th and the 7th floors are molded naturalistic friezes. The 7th floor is within the gable end of the peaked roof. There is a stone surround enframing paired windows in each bay. The building date, 1883, is written in a stone tablet above the windows.

The 23rd Street facade has modernized storefronts along the ground floor, with a building entrance near the west end. At the 2nd floor the six bays which characterize this facade are established in the large arched windows with stone surrounds holding replacement windows. There is a recessed 7th bay in the far western end of the building. A decorative terra-cotta belt course wraps the building above the 2nd floor. Five slightly projecting brick piers, rising from between the windows of the 2nd floor up to the level of the lintels of the 3rd-floor windows, have panels with human visages. The windows of the 3rd floor are paired and similar to those on the Fifth Avenue facade. The 4th and 5th floors have windows like those on the Fifth Avenue facade. There are decorated metal anchors over the brick piers at the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. Over the 5th floor a terra-cotta belt course wraps the building. The 6th floor is similar to the Fifth Avenue facade, but there are terra-cotta decorated panels between the windows and additional panels above the windows, creating a frieze below the cornice. The 7th floor has a gabled dormer with patterned brick and stone lintels at each bay.

The western end bay is slightly recessed and has a pictorial limestone panel under three small windows. At the 2nd floor is a single segmental-arched window with stone surround. The 3rd floor holds a square-headed window with stone surround. There is a narrow coping over this floor, above which the bay again recesses. The 5th- and 6th-floor windows are similar to the 4th-floor window. A patterned brick and terra-cotta cornice caps this bay. There is a penthouse structure over the 7th bay, attached to the chimney which forms a blank brick bay at the far western end of the building. It rises a story above the roof line.

Subsequent tenants, after Western Union, were characteristic of the district and included: Sommer's, cloaks and suits, who leased the building in 1905 for twenty years; and Chilian White Topas, jewelry, about 1905. John B. Snook's Sons remodeled the ground floor storefronts that same year. The ground floor is occupied by a Bank of America branch, and Joe Coffee Company.