Arsenal Building (New York City, New York)

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259-foot, 21-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1924. Designed by Buchman & Kahn, it is named for the New York State Arsenal that previously occupied the site. It is 11 bays wide on 35th Street, with 5 bays on 7th Avenue. The main entrance is in the center bay on the avenue, with plain white granite framing glass doors. The metal number 463 are attached above the doors, offset to the right. The other bays have plate-glass storefronts. At the ground floor the piers are dark grey-brown granite on grey granite bases; above, at the rest of the 3-story base, the piers are variegated beige brick each broken by four thin, vertical lines of rope moldings. Above the storefront windows and between the piers, large black metal panels serve complete the ground floor. The 2nd & 3rd floors have tripartite windows divided by beige stone pilasters. There are very ornate terra-cotta spandrel panels by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. between the two floors, with floral, foliate and geometric designs. Intricate abstract foliate patterns decorate the capitals of the piers at the top of the 3rd floor.

The transitional 4th floor has a stone band at the bottom, and two windows in each bay, each framed by flat pilasters with metopes at their bottoms and stylized capitals at the tops. Between each pair of pilasters is a carved relief in terra-cotta, except for the spaces above the piers, where there are carved stone statues of various figures (there are additional reliefs instead of statues above the end piers). A stone band course runs above the windows and pilasters, topped by a frieze with similar carvings to those on the capitals of the piers. The windows in the northern bay at the 3rd & 4th floors have been replaced by black metal louvers. The south facade of the base mostly matches the west elevation, except that some of the black metal panels above the storefronts are corrugated, the storefronts have smaller windows, and some of the bays have polished black granite infill. There are service entrances in the 4th bay from the east, and the narrower eastern end bay. This end bays has narrow double-windows instead of the tripartite windows at the 2nd & 3rd floors.

The upper floors are clad in brown brick, with two windows in each bay, spread evenly across the facades; each window has a stone sill. The three eastern bays set back above the 9th floor, with additional setbacks at the 16th, 18th, and 20th floors. Each is capped by a modillioned cornice. The rest of the south and west facades extend to the 16th floor, where they are capped by rows of corbelled arched, covering three smaller windows per bay. The 18th & 20th-floor setbacks have smaller corbelled arch courses.

The ground floor is occupied by Andrews NYC Diner, City Printing & Signs, Glamour Center Hair Salon, FedEx Office, and NYC Racquet Sports.

www.newyorkitecture.com/arsenal-building/
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