Fashion Tower North & South (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

A pair of joined Art-Deco office buildings: Fashion Tower South is 304-feet, 25 floors, and was completed in 1925, designed by George & Edward Blum. Fashion Tower North is 275-feet, has 23 floors, and was completed in 1930, designed by Schwarz & Gross. Although originally separate, they were joined together not long after completion, and the 3-story base was re-clad to match. It is limestone, spanning a total of nine bays on 7th Avenue; the 3rd bay from the north is wider and contains the main entrance, framed in brass at the ground floor, and topped by a 2-story Art-Deco geometric ornament in red and green glazed-glass outlined in brass; the red shapes project out from the wall. To the north is a modernized storefront; to the south (at what was originally 491-495 7th Avenue), the twin entrances have been converted to a storefront at the north and a service entrance at the south, both with round-arches. The northern arch is framed in brass. Between the two is another storefront.

The rest of the base has large, square window openings on both floors, on either side of the colored tile ornament above the entrance. On the north facade on 37th Street, the base has four bays, with a storefront and service entrance on the ground floor. The 2nd & 3rd floors are organized into paired windows at the middle two bays, three windows at the west bay, and three narrower windows at the east bay, with fluted limestone piers and spandrels between them.

At the upper floors, clad in buff-colored brick, the south tower has three bays of three windows each, while the north tower has three windows in the middle bay, flanked by bays of double-windows divided by black iron mullions. The brick piers and pilasters at the north tower are flat, while those on the south tower project slightly outward. The spandrels at the north tower have vertical bars of projecting brickwork, with stone sills below the windows, while at the south tower the spandrels have more intricate Art-Deco patterns in stone, with geometric sills and lintels and the tops and bottoms.

The outer bays of both facades set back above the 18th floor, where the south tower has round-arched windows at its outer bays. The center bay of the south tower extends up two more floors, and a series of setbacks at all three bays continues up to the roof line, each setback topped by pointed stone ornament. The north tower's center bay extends one floor higher to its first setback, and also has a series of setbacks at the top floors, marked by simpler parapets.

The north facade on 37th Street has triple-windows in the middle two bays, divided by wide iron mullions; the west bay has four windows separated by brick pilasters, and the east bay has three windows also separated by pilasters. At most of the floors, the two flanking windows in the east bay are replaced by metal louvers. The spandrel ornamentation matches that on the west facade of the North Tower. The outer two bays set back above the 18th floor, and the middle two bays above the 19th floor. The ground floor is occupied by Fresh & Co. restaurant, and Leppola Italian Bakery.