Madison-Belmont Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, Art Deco (architecture), Second Empire (architecture), historic landmark, historical building

228-foot, 18-story Chicago-School/Art-Deco office building completed in 1925 for Robert M. Catts, a financier, big-game hunter and developer.. Designed by Warren & Wetmore, it has an unusual composition: an orange brick neo-Chicago school facade, rare Empire Revival public spaces, and some of the earliest Art-Deco detailing in New York City at the entrances. The interior murals were likely executed by the interior decorating firm of Cooper & Gentiluomo who also did Steinway Hall. Its metalwork was fabricated by Edgar Brandt.

It was built as office and showroom space for silk companies in the developing Silk District of midtown Manhattan. The Cheney Silk Company, with headquarters in Manchester, Connecticut, was the building’s major tenant and had its showrooms on the first three floors of the building.

A transitional style building, the Madison Belmont Building straddles the line between classical and early modern design. The use of color in the building is also not traditional. Rather than cladding the building in traditional stone, it is faced in variegated pink brick, with red metal window frames, contrasting spandrel bricks, all of which are significantly different from the stone and metal base materials. The spandrels are faced with multi-toned brick laid in a basket-weave pattern, typical of the Art -Deco style. The overall plan is L-shaped, win a narrow wing extending to 33rd Street. The main lobby entrance is on 34th Street. A secondary entrance is on Madison Avenue, with access to a large showroom that occupies much of the ground floor. The building rises straight up from the lot line through the top of the 15th floor at which point there is a broad, highly ornamented cornice. Above the cornice the next two stories set back, with a projecting center section. The 18th-floor addition is recessed farther and not ornamented.

On 34th Street the lowest three floors have granite facing with large glass display windows; decorative iron grates below the ground-floor windows; continuous iron framework around windows; and red spandrel panels between the 1st- & 2nd-floor windows. The main entrance, in the eastern bay, has bronze-and-glass entry doors and a large iron-and-bronze decorative transom.

The upper floors are clad in narrow pink brick, with brick sills. The 5th-15th floors have continuous brick piers with recessed spandrels of varied colored brick in basket pattern; the 4th floor has terra-cotta pediments and flanking panels of terra-cotta blocks in a diamond-point rustication pattern. The 15th floor has terra-cotta ornament surrounding the windows, and there is an ornate terra-cotta cornice above 15th floor; as well as terra-cotta ornament around the windows of 16th and 17th floors. The 18th floor was added in 1953 and is not ornamented.

Facing Madison Avenue, the facade has two outside bays of large glass display windows with continuous framing; a recessed entrance door with iron and bronze transom; flanking decorative iron entrance gates, open and flat against reveal of entrance; and smaller windows above the center entrance bay. The brick facade is five bays wide above the base, with decorative motifs the same as on the 34th Street facade. The recessed western facade and southern facade are faced with plain, dark brick, and have plain, paired rectangular windows with no ornamentation.

The 33rd Street facade is pink brick, three bays wide. It has a 1st-floor recessed opening with paired metal service doors and single fire stair door on eastern side. Brick pilasters with stone capitals flank each side of the opening. The 2nd floor has a single, large, metal-framed opening with a metal fan grate in the center flanked by narrow windows painted black. The 3rd & 4th floors have large single bays with red-framed windows and ornamented black metal spandrels beneath the windows. There is a shallow cornice with modillions above the 4th floor. The facade rises up straight for seven floors, each with three bays of single-windows. There is a string course above the 10th floor, and the facade is recessed above the 11th floor for five stories to a decorative cornice, and then set back slightly for two floors, with mechanical equipment on roof. The ground floor is occupied by Poltrona Frau.

The first floor interior and its exterior was designated as a New York City landmark in 2011.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2425.pdf
www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org/db/bb_files/2011...
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/realestate/18streets.html
books.google.com/books?id=J1a3hvykc_0C&lpg=PA165&am...