349 Fifth Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

8-story office building completed in 1904. Designed by Louis Korn, it is clad in limestone (painted beige on the 2-story base, and north facade). The west facade on 5th Avenue spans three bays, with five bays on 34th Street. The main entrance is in the center bay on the avenue, with a 2-story metal-and-glass opening framed by a light-grey polished granite surround with beveled edges that angle back. The water table at the sidewalk level is of the same granite. The flanking bays have tall ground-floor windows, and almost-square windows at the 2nd floor, in aluminum frames. On the north facade, there are similar windows in the western bay, and a recessed entrance at the east bay, topped by an angled canvas canopy, with a metal vent above that, and another metal vent at the 2nd floor. In between are three wide bays of large double-show-windows with shorter windows at the 2nd floor. The base is occupied by a Chase Bank branch, with large CHASE signs on both facades.

The upper floors on the west facade have three windows in the center, with double-windows in the end bays, divided by dark-brown metal mullions. The windows have stone sills (bracketed at the end bays), and splayed lintels with keystones. The piers between the bays project slightly forward, and at the 7th floor have overlying double pilasters with herringbone patterns, atop metopes, supporting a projecting cornice above the 7th floor.

The north facade has paired windows in the middle bays, double-windows in the western bay, and metal vents divided into two halves by wide stone mullions in the eastern bay. The 7th-floor features are the same. The top floor, above the cornice, has a smaller roof cornice, and there is a mechanical penthouse at the east end of the roof.