11 West 20th Street

 apartment building  Add category

9-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1901. Designed by George W. Spitzer as a store-and-loft building, it is clad in stone, four bays wide.

The 3-story rusticated base is adorned with cartouches at the 2nd and 3rd floors, elaborately carved pier capitals at the 2nd floor, and molded window surrounds at the 3rd floor. Above, the smooth facade is punctuated by square-headed openings topped with keystones, with windows set in depressed-arched openings at the 8th floor, and in round-arched openings at the 9th floor. The facade is capped by a bracketed and modillioned grey metal roof cornice. Each floor is divided by a simple string course. A double-height black cast-iron storefront at the base features an original projecting bay flanked by recessed entrances that have been slightly altered by new glass infill. The four large, pivoting windows at the 2nd floor are also original.

This building originally housed a store, a workshop and manufacturing facilities, as well as wholesale lofts. Among the early tenants were furriers, cloak and suit, and shirtwaist merchants. It was converted to apartments sometime in the late 1900s. The ground floor is occupied by Advanced Nails & Spa.