The Centurian (New York City, New York)

 condominiums, apartment building

220-foot, 16-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1910. Designed by William L. Rouse of the firm of Rouse & Goldstone as an office building, it was described in a 1910 article as the most elaborate structure of its type on Broadway north of 23rd Street. The 2-story base is defined by four 35-foot-tall fluted Tuscan columns supporting a projecting crown with consoles, metopes, guttae, and incised lettering "CENTURIAN BUILDING". Behind the columns is a modernized glass curtain wall with black metal spandrels and rounded black metal awnings over the entrance in the end bays.

The transitional 3rd floor is clad in white stone, with beige brick on the 9-story shaft. They have four bays, with paired windows in the end bays, and single-windows in the center bays. The stone piers at the 3rd floor are paneled. The windows on the shaft, from the 4th-12th floors, have bracketed stone sills and splayed brick lintels with scrolled keystones. The 13th floor matches the 4th, as is topped by a dentiled cornice. The 3-story crown is clad in white terra-cotta, with broad fluted piers, and three bays (wider in the center). The 14th-15th floors have double-height openings with iron mullions and spandrels. Dentiled sills underline the top-floor openings, and there are stylized capitals at the piers, supporting a white bracketed and dentiled roof cornice. Above the cornice is a terra-cotta balustrade on the roof.

The upper north elevation has terra-cotta facing, moldings, and a balustrade on the roof; the south elevation is mostly clad in brick, with white terra-cotta at the front third of the top four floors. It has nine columns of windows (one of them smaller, narrow windows). The dentiled cornice above the 13th floor on the front facade continues halfway across the south elevation, and there is a decorative terra-cotta band above the top floor, the front of which is also crowned by a terra-cotta balustrade on the roof. At the middle is a taller mechanical penthouse in brick and terra-cotta.

Around 2005 the building was illegally converted to residential, and subsequently, in 2010, the owner was fined and tenants temporarily relocated. It was renovated again in 2013, and now has 39 apartment units, with a roof deck behind the balustrades. The ground floor is occupied by L'Adresse restaurant.

streeteasy.com/building/the-centurian
ny.curbed.com/2017/11/20/16681318/centurion-building-no...