557 8th Avenue

 office building, Art Nouveau / Jugendstil (architecture), Second Empire (architecture), 1903_construction

3 story Art-Nouveau office building completed in 1903 as a hotel. Designed by Stein, Cohen & Roth (Emery Roth), it is embellished with many great details, clad in cream-colored Roman brick trimmed in carved brownstone and green-painted pressed metal. There are two bays on Eighth Avenue, a chamfered corner, and eight bays on 38th Street. The original ground floor has been mostly destroyed, replaced by a hodgepodge of storefronts. The main entrance is on 38th Street, right of center, between two grey-painted incised piers that slope outwards, with a carved lion's head over the doorway. A small, sloped shingle roof covers the entrance and the storefronts to either side.

The end bays on the upper floors of the north facade are projecting bay windows, somewhat out of place by holding firmly to their Victorian roots, but adding dimension. The windows in the middle bays are framed in brownstone capped with undulating, sensuous art nouveau swirls. Shallow brick pilasters rise between the windows to the 3rd floor, where they are capped by maidens’ heads in deep relief, each sheltered by a shell. Below the heads, brownstone garlands stretch from window to window in a continuous line.

The east facade and beveled corner have similar window surrounds, but without the carved heads and garlands. Crowning both facades is a pressed-metal roof cornice - painted green like the projecting bays - with Art-Nouveau detailing. The Otto Wagner-influenced exterior displays rows of stelae and a commanding pressed-metal cornice.

The building was run as a hotel when completed. Managed as a residential hotel, its tenants were for the most part long-term. The commercial space at street level was originally a jewelry store, run by Emil Moescher who lived with his wife in the rear. In 1906 the building was sold and would remain in the same hands for nearly half a century. Following Moescher's death by suicide in 1908, the jewelry store was converted to a saloon. With the onset of Prohibition, the saloon became a tobacco shop, from 1919-1940. The ground floor was altered in 1948 when the building was sold.

The ground floor is now occupied by Smoke Valley, 2 Bros. Pizza, City Sewing, and Carmen's Kitchen.