6 West 18th Street

 office building  Add category

133-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts/Neo-Classical office building completed in 1910. Designed by Schwartz & Gross as a store-and-loft building, it has a limestone and buff-colored brick facade with terra-cotta details above the 9th floor. The 2-story rusticated limestone base, painted at the first story, has slightly projecting end bays. The ground floor sits on polished pink granite blocks and contains a replacement glass and metal storefront surmounted by the original 1st-story metal cornice. In the end bays are deeply recessed limestone door surrounds with modillioned soffits at the 1st floor and deeply recessed sash with incised voussoirs in the 2nd floor. The show window in the center of the 2nd floor contains three pairs of wood casement windows under transoms. The cornice over the 2nd floor is undecorated except for large console brackets flanking the end bays.

The 3rd floor is faced with bands of brick and limestone. Set off by simple stone cornices, the 4th through the 9th floors are faced with brick; the recessed center bay has three pairs of windows with a single limestone sill, separated by wide brick mullions, and single windows in the end bays. The 10th floor faced with alternating bands of brick and terra-cotta, has five single windows under decorated terra-cotta panels. The end bays are flanked by decorated terra-cotta straps with roundels. The 11th & 12th floors are treated as an arcade with embellished imposts, arched windows on the 12th floor, and paneled spandrels.

The eastern elevation is faced with red brick and has no applied architectural detail. There are five bays of seven windows above the outline of a 4-story rowhouse, which stood on the site to the east. One bay of windows has been filled in.

Early tenants included cloak and suit businesses, a button merchant, a restaurant, and the Brevoort Construction Company, who also erected the building. The loft spaces gradually shifted to offices during the mid-1900s. The ground floor is occupied by Sacha & Olivier salon, and Ootoya restaurant.