152 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

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299-foot, 23-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1929. Designed by Henry I. Oser, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone base. The east facade on Madison Avenue has wide bands of windows in the middle (five separate windows on the upper floors), and double-windows in the end bays (single-windows on the upper floors). The south facade on 32nd Street is five bays wide; it has tripartite windows at the base (wider in the middle bays), and at the upper floors has single-windows in the end bays with three windows per bay in the middle.

The ground floor is lined with modernized storefronts; the stone spandrels between the two bottom floors have patterns with heart-shaped designs around flowers. A frieze of joined spiraling circles above a dentil course caps the base, interrupted by large, beveled projections at the piers around the end bays.

At the upper floors the brick piers run unbroken up to the 14th floor, where the first of many small setbacks begins between the end bays. The end bays continue up another couple floors before joining in the cascade of setbacks on both sides, sloping the top of the building to the northwest. Stone caps terminate each pier and setback at the various levels.

The west elevation is clad in red and patchwork brick at the lower floors, and buff-colored brick above the 6th on the front side. The red brick continues up the rear (north) side to the 18th floor. There is a bay of paired windows at the front, and a recessed area in the center, with smokestacks and pipes running up it, joined at each floor by a joist spanning the gap.

The north elevation is clad in buff-colored brick above the 5th floor; the rest of stuccoed. There is a bay of double-windows at the east end, with two bays of triple-windows closer to the center, and four columns of small windows at the west end. The ground floor is occupied by Aate Beauty Salon, and Florim tile store.