42 East 23rd Street

 office building, 1905_construction

8-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1895. The original design of the ground floor has been erased and covered over by white brick, a metal-framed door and roll-down metal gate. The 2nd floor is framed in grooved stone, with acanthus leaf ornament at the upper corners. Two slender Corinthian columns divide the floor into three bays of windows. Above a stone cornice, the upper floors have buff-colored brick outer piers rising to stylized capitals at the 6th & 7th floors. The 3rd-6th floors have projecting bay windows, with angled side panes and paired center panes, all framed in brown cast-iron with paneled spandrels between floors.

The 6th floor is topped by a stone cornice with a detailed frieze. Above, the 7th floor has five round-arched windows; four brackets springing from the impost blocks support a curved metal balcony at the 8th floor, whose five square-headed windows are surmounted and partially covered at the ends by a broad, flat-topped arch, with intricate carved ornament. The facade is crowned by a projecting roof cornice with a detailed frieze and dentils. The exposed upper part of the western elevation is clad in dark-red brick, with a few windows.