246 5th Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

6-story Romanesque-revival office building completed in 1889. Designed by John E. Terhune as a store, the building is L-shaped, with a much wider frontage on West 28th than on 5th Avenue. The 5th Avenue facade, however, is the more interesting, with the assymetry of its facade. One of its two bays, the one on the corner, features a 3-story arch surrounding cast-iron projecting windows frames on the 3rd-5th floors.

The 2-story base contains a non-historic street-level storefront and 2nd-floor show windows. Above, the 3-story arch with cast-iron bay windows has paneled spandrels and a corbeled crown. To the left are single-windows, round-arched at the 5th floor. , with a smaller corbelled band course. The 6th floor has projecting, fluted, terra-cotta piers supporting two round-arches on the right; to the left is a square-headed window. A brick parapet tops this facade.

The 28th Street facade is 12 bays wide. The 2-story base is clad in white-painted brick and stucco, with tall aluminum- or brass-framed windows and doors. The main building entrance is in the center, with brass-framed double doors flanked by sidelights and topped by a fanlight. The upper floors are clad in painted brick. 3-story arches similar to the one on 5th Avenue fill the easternmost and 2nd-from-westernmost bays. The rest of the bays have single-windows, except for two with double-windows. All are square-headed at the 3rd & 4th floors, and round-arched at the 5th floor. The 4th-floor windows have fluted metal panels in place of transoms, and all the windows have stone sills. Brick corbelling surmounts the 5th floor. The windows on the 6th floor are slightly smaller, with a corbelled brick parapet at the roof line. The far eastern bay has two round-arched windows, above the large 3-story arch, and above the western two bays is a band of three two-over-two windows.

Both facades were once painted white, but the paint is weathering away, particularly at the top, revealing the red brick underneath. A renovation of the exterior was begun in 2014. The ground floor is occupied by Bondi Sushi, and Tramonti restaurant.

In 1911, the building was occupied by the E.W. Emery Co., tailors, and the C.F. Janson Co., furriers.