488 7th Avenue Apartments

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160-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1903 as a hotel. Designed by Harry B. Mulliken, it opened as the Hotel York. The 2-story base of rusticated limestone is topped by a third floor of planar stone. Above this nine stories of red brick and limestone erupt skyward in a profusion of turn-of-the-century architectural showmanship, frosted with carved urns, garlands, cartouches, and grotesques.

In 1925 the hotel was renovated to accommodate stores at street level. Throughout the next few decades fewer and fewer of the theatrical crowd would live here as newer hotels opened closer to Times Square—now the undisputed center of the theater area. With the entertainment district gone, the Garment District took over. By the 1960s the York Hotel was occupied mostly by traveling salesmen. Only two floors of the hotel were now rented for guests; the rest having been taken over by garment salesmen as would-be showrooms, especially during market weeks.

The east facade on the avenue is nine bays wide, while the south facade has seven bays. Both main facades have a 2-story limestone base with striations suggesting rusticated, and a transitional 3rd floor also faced in limestone. The ground floor on 7th Avenue, and the eastern third on 36th Street have been remodeled with new storefronts of grey-green tinted metal and glass, and a metal-and-glass canopy extends out over the entrance. The grand entrance, three bays wide, projects outward, with four broad piers supporting a grand balustraded balcony, above which rise four large stone pineapples (traditional symbols of hospitality) on elaborate bases at the 3rd floor. Segmental-arches within the 2nd-floor windows within the grand entrance have elaborate Beaux-Arts stone ornament, and the four piers are adorned with ornamental stone fantasy heads just below the balustrade. Cartouches flanked by foliate ornament top the segmental-arches. The grand entrance is flanked by narrow oval windows at the 2nd floor outlined in wreaths and sporting additional fantasy heads. The two outer bays of the 2nd floor have square-headed windows with keystones, and small Juliett balconies with wrought-iron railings. At the 3rd floor, smaller windows than the three segmental-arched ones below top the balustrade, the outer two topped with a keystone and draped garlands; and the center window flanked by elaborate console brackets and topped by a lion's head. The brackets support a stone balcony at the middle of the 4th floor, with a carved stone rail and a pair of urns topping the edges. Above the 2nd floor's oval windows are two narrow square-headed windows, with bracketed sills and keystones. The two outer bays have square-headed windows above mini-balustrades, and are also topped with keystone. Between the bays on the 3rd floor are narrow bands of red brick (wider between the two outer bays). The 3rd floor is capped by a rounded cornice.

The upper floors are faced in red brick with limestone accents, including rusticated bands running up both edges, and rusticated cladding at the narrow windows above the base's oval windows, all edged with quoins. The rest of the windows are square-headed single-windows, except for double-windows in the center bay. All the windows have stone lintels with keystones and similar, projecting impost blocks, as well as projecting bracketed sills - except for the 4th floor, which has wrought-iron grilles over the bottom of the windows in place of sills. Stone band courses link the sills in each bay - at every floor in the middle, and at alternating floors at the outer bays. Additional balconies with elaborate brackets and differently-designed urns front the center bay at the 6th, 8th & 10th floors. A rounded band course caps the 9th floor, and a black, projecting cornice tops the 10th floor, where handing pendant ornament decorates the rusticated limestone sections at the edges and framing the narrow windows.

At the crown, the top two floors have stone quoins outlining the windows that flank the center bay. Here, both floors have extremely elaborate carved stone ornament. At the narrow-window bays, black round-arches spring from the cornice, broken by the windows themselves, and the handing pendant ornament from above. Long, oversized scrolled brackets support a projecting black iron roof cornice with modillions and dentils.

On the south facade, there is a small service entrance at the west end of the ground floor, and three posterboards to the right, with the modernized storefront at the east end. Above, the window organization is similar to the east facade, with a double-window in the center, flanked by single-windows, then a bay of smaller windows, and one single-window end bay on each side. At the 2nd floor the windows have small balconies with wrought-iron railings, except for the small bays. They all have keystones, and brackets flank the top of the center window, supporting a balustraded balcony at the 3rd floor. The rest of the south facade basically matches the general design and ornament of the east facade.

In 1986 Martin Swartzman & Partners purchased the 12-story building and commissioned architect Costas Kondylis to converted it to mixed commercial and residential space, with 104 apartment units. The ground floor is occupied by FedEx Office, Vivi Bubble Tea, Barrelmore Wine & Spirits, and Portabella apparel.