Stewart & Company Building

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8-story Chicago School/Neo-Classical office building completed in 1915. Designed by Warren & Wetmore for Robert Walton Goelet (a member of one of New York’s oldest and wealthiest families, with real estate holdings said to have been second only to the Astor family), the building has decorative terra-cotta manufactured by the New York Terra Cotta Company. The firm of Warren & Wetmore, of which Goelet’s uncle, Whitney Warren, was a principal, designed this and several other buildings for him in Manhattan.

The east facade on 5th Avenue is five bays wide, while the north facade on 37th Street spans nine bays. The original storefronts have been replaced with modern versions. The ground floor cladding which was a dark color when the building was built was re-clad or covered with light colored stucco sometime between 1940 and the late 1970s. The existing cladding has a rope detail at the three street façade corners that is similar to the rope detail above in the upper floors. At the corner pier the number “404” has been pin-mounted at the 2nd floor on both the Fifth Avenue and West 37th Street sides. The westernmost bay, which is the ninth bay, of the West 37th Street facade has black stone cladding and contains recessed glass and metal double-leaf entrance doors and glass and metal double-leaf service doors. The windows located above the 4th to 9th bays have been replaced by dark colored metal louvers.

The second floor of the Fifth Avenue façade and the first three bays of the West 37th Street facades originally had large single-pane windows with tripartite, dark, solid transoms above. In the spandrels below these windows are the original dark inset panels and decorative metal cresting. Below the cresting is a band with an overall pattern of diamonds and inset flowers. The configuration of these windows has not been altered except that some of the panels in the transom have been replaced by louvers.

There is a uniform treatment above the 2nd floors at the two primary street facades. All the windows are identical except that the top floor windows are taller than the lower floor windows. Three original windows remain at the three southernmost bays of the 8th floor at the Fifth Avenue façade and one original window remains at the westernmost bay of the eighth floor at the West 37th Street facade. All the other windows at the upper floors have been replaced with new dark, metal windows having large, flat panning. All windows at the 3rd through 7th floors that have been replaced are presently Chicago windows with tripartite single-pane windows or metal panels in the transoms. At the 8th floor, all the windows that have been replaced are presently Chicago windows set below tripartite single-pane windows with tripartite single-pane windows above in the transom.

A light colored masonry cornice with dentils below runs between the 2nd & 3rd floors. Above this cornice, the structural frame of the building is clad with blue and white terra-cotta that has elaborate ornamentation. The horizontal spandrels between the 3rd & 4th, 4th & 5th, and 6th & 7th floors have an all-over design of small squares with inset floriated motifs. The squares have a blue background and the flowers are white. The flowers in the spandrels between the 3rd & 4th floors, and 6th & 7th floors, are identical and have four broad petals. The flowers in the spandrels between the 4th & 5th floors are round with many slender petals. Above and below the squares are bands with roundels alternating with round and floral designs with a square having an in-set flower placed wherever there is a mullion above and below. In these bands, the background of the squares and the center of the flowers and the round designs are blue while the flowers and round design are white.

There are two identical string courses between the 5th & 6th, and 7th & 8th floors onsisting of a center band with a blue background and repeating motif of laurel branch wreaths and ribbons. Above and below this motif are an oval beaded border and a band of white terra-cotta and then a motif consisting of a bundle of reeds with blue criss-cross ties and a white round circle. The criss-cross ties appear above and beneath each mullion and at the middle of each center window.

The laurel branch wreaths and bundled reeds motifs are repeated above the 8th floor just below the cornice. At the frieze underneath the cornice are acanthus leaf shaped brackets alternating with blue panels having a raised white flower. There are three different flower designs that alternate with a sunflower, a pinwheel flower and a leaf-like flower. Within each square is an oval beaded border. The horizontal elements of the brackets are rectangular in shape and have square flowers at the projecting end. All of these flowers are identical. There are white swags that wrap around the leaf-shaped bracket and connect to the rectangular element above. Underneath the cornice between the brackets, are panels with a blue background and a white relief of two laurel branches and ribbons.

The cornice consists of a band of white terra-cotta with a flat blue design of rectangular shapes that are slightly arched at the top. Above each bracket in this band is a white flower in relief. Above this band is an alternating motif of a white simplified acanthus leaf and flower bud on a long stem against a blue background.

Running vertically between each window bay of the Fifth Avenue between the 3rd & 5th, 6th & 7th, and at the 8th floor are pilasters with white rectangular-shaped angular bases with an egg design against a blue background above. The shafts are bundled reeds with blue criss-cross ties having a white round circle, which are located in the middle of each window at the 3rd-7th floors, at each spandrel, and twice at the taller 8th-floor windows. The bundled reeds also have a white band with small blue rectangles that appear at the top and bottom of each horizontal spandrel. The capital is a white simplified acanthus leaf against a blue background with a white, thin rectangular slab above.

At the corners of the primary street facades, also running between the 3rd & 5th, 6th & 7th, and at the 8th floor, are the same bundled reed pilasters seen between the window bays on Fifth Avenue and blue panels with low white relief set in-between. At the bottom of these panels is an urn with a swag of draped fabric sitting on a base with a leaf design. At the top of the urn is a ribbon in a bow. Above this a laurel branch and ribbon motif with an oval beaded border, identical to that seen at the string courses, that proceeds vertically to the next string course or cornice. Above this running design in the string course is a square design having a circle made of laurel branches. The same motifs of the bundled reeds and the urn and leaf design are seen between the window bays at the West 37th Street façade.

The secondary west façade is visible from the west over the adjacent six-story building. The façade is clad in white brick. A vertical band of decorative terra-cotta repeats the same pattern as the end pier of the West 37th Street façade. A bulkhead clad in white tile and brick is visible at the roof.

The building originally had two retail tenants at the ground floor, Stewart & Company and Mark Cross. Stewart & Company, a department store and operator of an international mail order business (not to be confused with the A.T. Stewart department store), occupied the southern storefront on Fifth Avenue and Mark Cross, a manufacturer and retailer of high quality leather goods, occupied the northern corner storefront. Stewart & Company merged with Arnold Constable in 1925 and moved out in 1928. Emily Shops, a woman’s clothing store, moved in the Stewart and Company space and remained until the 1950s. Mark Cross remained in the building until 1935 when they, too, moved uptown. The commercial tenants who have occupied the building include individuals and companies in industries as diverse as watches, clothing, importing, photography, jewelry, publishing, tires and rubber, legal, real estate, beauty, fitness, dentistry, banking and squash and racquet clubs.

The ground floor is currently occupied by a SalonCentric. The exterior is a New York City landmark.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2185.pdf
www.americanbuildings.org/pab/app/pr_display.cfm/752516