Sports Plaza Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, Art Deco (architecture)

166-foot, 15-story office building completed in 1927 for the Childs Real Estate Company. Designed by William Van Alen, the building is L-shaped, wrapping around the shorter building to the north. The south facade is eight bays wide, with narrower end bays, and the west facade fronting the avenue has three bays. The building featured a Child’s Restaurant on its ground floor when it originally opened. In 1980 a large digital sign board was added to the west facade and west half of the south facade, covering the 3rd-8th floors.

The facades are faced in beige stucco, with the main entrance at the east end on 33rd Street. It has brass doors and is framed in pinkish-orange marble that also extends in a narrow band up above the entrance to the 4th floor. Brass letters affixed to the marble read "SPORTS PLAZA BUILDING" above the entry, and "421" at the 2nd floor, in place of a window. Each bay has double-windows, with single-windows at the end bays, except for the 5th floor, which also has a double-window. Those on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th floors also have transoms. Within each bay, the floors are separated by matching marble spandrels, capped at the top of the 4th floor with notched upper corners.

The main roof line is at the 14th floor, which has smaller windows. The wing extending toward the middle of the block rises an extra floor. Its west-facing elevation has a single bay of windows near where it connects to the rest of the building, and there is a detached, windowless tower at the far north end, joined to the rest of the building by inset balconies with metal railings at each floor. The north facade of the main building section has six bays of windows, one of which has shorter windows than the others. There is also a silver metal frame around the four western bays from the 5th-8th floors. The east elevation has three bays of windows near the southern end.

Formerly home to a Childs Restaurant, the ground floor is occupied by a gift shop, and Sbarro pizza.

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