88 Charles Street

 apartment building  Add category

5-story Neo-Grec residential building completed in 1887. Designed by William Grant, it is clad in red brick with stone and terra-cotta ornament. It has the typically heavy, protruding window lintels, resting on horizontal band courses which extend across the building. The interesting first floor has a central doorway, framed by Corinthian pilasters supporting bold console brackets which carry the stone cornice slab that serves as a base for the fire escape. This doorway is flanked on either side by a pair of tall windows, surmounted by a segmental-arched brick lintel with a sculptured woman's head serving as an ornamental keystone. The circles and other incised motifs typical of the Neo-Grec period, that decorate the doorway and windows of the first floor, give it a delicate sense of scale.