Old Navy (New York City, New York)

 office building, 1912_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

4-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1912. Designed by Buchman & Fox as a store-and-loft building for David Price, it copies the basic form, materials, and some of the details found in the Siegel-Cooper Building, just to the north at 616-632 Sixth Avenue. The adjoining 2-story section on 18th Street, called the McCrorey Building, was initially planned to be part of the Price Building, but the two buildings were not internally connected because of a disagreement between the lessees. In 1949, the two buildings were finally internally joined by Knickerbocker Motors to serve as an auto showroom and service garage.

The 4-story Price Building, at the west, is faced in white terra-cotta above the white stone ground floor. The storefronts have modern aluminum and glass infill between the banded stone piers. The west facade has eight windows on the 2nd-3rd floors, and the north facade has seven. Raised moldings between the windows create stylized pilasters with carved lion's heads superimposed over the capitals at the 3rd floor. A paneled spandrel with a center rosette joins the windows at each bay into a 2-story window unit. A fretted belt course separates the attic from the midsection with "Price Building" written in terra-cotta spanning the center bays on both facades. Each bay on the 4th floor has paired windows with a cast-iron column as a mullion. Raised decorative panels separate the bays. A dentiled and modillioned white metal cornice caps the building.

The 2-story McCrorey Building is clad in white brick on the first floor, and white terra-cotta on the 2nd. A large masonry sign flanked by consoles and reading "McCrorey Building," rests on the cornice. The five wide ground-floor bays have modern aluminum and glass infill. The 2nd floor is composed of nine bays, each with a single window. The capitals between the 2nd-floor bays have stylized capitals, each ornamented with a circle flanked by vertical grooves. They support a frieze with vertical grooves and diamond shaped above each pier, topped by the modillioned roof cornice and the masonry sign above. The ground floor of both sections is currently occupied by Old Navy.

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