FAO Schwarz Building

 office building  Add category

269-foot, 20-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1909. Designed by Buchman & Fox, it opened with FAO Schwarz as the anchor retail tenant. The 3-story base has rusticated limestone piers resting on grey granite plinths. The west facade, three bays wide, has a stone-enframed entrance in the north bay (with the ornamented entablature featuring metopes, circles and a cartouche), and modernized storefronts in the other two bays. The 2nd & 3rd floors have black cast-iron infill, with paneled piers, tripartite windows, and triangular pediments over the center windows of each bay at the top of the 2nd floor.

The longer south facade has eight bays, each separated by stone piers and with the same tripartite windows and black cast-iron framing and pediments. The ground-floor storefronts in the two western bays project out, with angled sides. The far eastern bay has a service entrance below a tripartite window, and the next bay has a glass storefront with a similar window above. The four middle bays are filled with paneled stone, topped by a row of circles, in turn surmounted by short tripartite windows. All of the piers have ornate stylized capitals supporting a dentiled cornice that caps the base.

The transitional 4th floor is clad in rusticated stone, with three windows per bay, divided by paneled stone pilasters. The piers have different stylized capitals and there is a stone band course with a pattern of projecting circles running across the top of this floor. The upper floors are clad in coursed beige brick. The paired windows in each bay have stone sills; at the 15th floor they are round-arched with keystones. The 16th floor is framed by a band course at the bottom and a dentiled cornice at the top, and sets off the 4-story crown. The piers on the 16th floor have decorative panels.

The top floors are clad in stone, with 3-story round-arches in each bay from the 17th-19th floors. They have black cast-iron infill, with tripartite windows and triangular pediments above the 17th-floor windows. The arches have keystones, and medallions decorate the spaces between. The 20th floor has two smaller, square windows per bay, evenly spaced by ornamented panels on the piers. Both main facades are crowned by a prominent green copper roof cornice with modillions, dentils and finials along the top edge; it also wraps partly around to the east facade, which has a 1-bay return of stone at the front and red brick on the rest of the elevation. The exposed top of the north facade also has a short stone return, and red brick behind it.

The ground floor is occupied by Bread & Butter restaurant.

hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c041991257?urlappend=%3Bseq=378...