Emmet Condominium

 Neo-Gothic (architecture)  Add category

213-foot, 16-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1913. Designed by Barney & Colt, it has many fine details at the upper cornice and top floors that speak of its Gothic nature, but has also been credited as French Renaissance. It was built for Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, who occupied a succession of houses and offices on the east side of Madison Avenue just south of 29th Street and gradually acquired the row of houses at 89, 91, 93 and 95, at the corner.

The building is clad in terra-cotta which was fabricated by the Federal Terra Cotta Co. It is five bays wide on both facades, with a 2-story base. The three middle bays on each facade have large expanses of glass at the ground floor. They are framed by 2-story octagonal columns of grey-green marble lined with grey ribs, and topped by Corinthian capitals. At the 2nd floor these bays have four windows ornate green iron mullions and elaborate green iron spandrels between the two floors. The end bays are framed by wide, scalloped columns with Corinthian capitals. The terra-cotta spandrels have curtain-like panels above five ribbon brackets. The 2nd floor at these bays has paired windows. The entablature capping the base has egg-and-dart moldings and carved grotesques.

The transitional 3rd floor initiates the continuous vertical tiers of terra-cotta, and is framed by egg-and-dart moldings above and below. The outer piers are adorned with cartouches, and the piers between the inner bays have standing figures set below elaborate canopies. Like the floors above, the end bays have paired windows, and the middle bays have four windows divided by narrow pilasters.

At the upper floors, the middle-bay pilasters are chamfered at a 45-degree angle. The spandrels here are black, fluted cast-iron. At the end bays the spandrels are paneled terra-cotta. The ornament at the top is more elaborate, beginning with arches above each middle-bay window at the 11th floor. The 12th floor is set off at top and bottom by dentiled bands that runs all the way across both facades, and has carved figures on the piers.

At the 13th-14th floors the middle bays have large 2-story arches, infilled with black cast-iron pilasters and spandrels. The outer edges of the arches are adorned with various carved figures. The 15th floor has rounded columns with carved sections between the windows of the middle bays, and is topped by a corbelled, projecting cornice.

Crowning the building are spiky, gabled dormer windows that project above what was originally a red tile roof and the surface is marked by extensive terra-cotta sculpture of grotesque, medieval figures and other elements. Each bay has one gable with paired windows, as well as an angled window at the northwest and southwest corners.

In 1912, at the age of 84, Dr. Emmet moved out of 89 Madison Avenue, erected a 16-story loft building on the site of the four houses he demolished and returned to occupy an apartment on the top floor of the new building. In 1919, Dr. Emmet died in his apartment; the following year the top-floor apartment was converted to commercial occupancy. It had been owned since 1943 by the Sklar family.

The ground floor is occupied by an M&T Bank branch. The building was converted by FXCollaborative to residential for Sunlight Development, a Flushing-based company.

6tocelebrate.org/site/the-emmet-building/
nycnpc.org/db/bb_files/2018-95-Madison-Ave--Emmet-Build...
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