222 Fifth Avenue

 office building  Add category

5-story Beaux-Arts office building originally completed in the mid-1800s as a masonry townhouse. It was converted to a store and dwelling in 1883. In 1903, as the area was becoming more commercial, its upper floors became lofts and a 5-story rear addition was constructed. The building's original residential facade was replaced in 1912 by a new commercial front, designed by architect John C. Westervelt. Later, the upper floors were converted to offices.

Its current appearance includes a white granite-framed storefront on the ground level, topped by a limestone band with an egg-and-dart molding and green lintel. The storefront is of wood and glass, with an entrance on the left, and large plate-glass show window in the center, and a smaller window at the right, all with transoms. A pair of narrow fluted columns support a patterned green iron lintel below the limestone band.

Above are projecting 2nd- and 3rd-floor bays, four windows wide, featuring slender, fluted, dark-green cast-iron columns and entablatures with decorative friezes; 4th-floor bays have slender cast-iron columns capped with scrolled brackets. The 3rd and 4th-floor windows have decorative wrought-iron railings, while the 5th floor features fluted stone piers and Ionic orders below a bracketed roof cornice and parapet featuring oculi and paneled plinths. The 2nd-4th floors are grouped within a shouldered architrave. The ground floor is occupied by PTS America porcelain/china.

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