Garment Wear Arcade

 office building, 1927_construction

233-foot, 18-story office building completed in 1927 for Morris Rothstein. Designed by Emery Roth, it spans through the block from 307 West 36th Street to 306 West 37th, with very similar facades. The south facade on 36th Street it clad in brown brick above a 3-story limestone base and an elaborate 4th floor faced in lighter-colored stone. There are three wide center bays, and narrower end bays, both with entrances framed by egg-and-dart moldings and topped by square window openings with decorative wrought-iron grilles at the 2nd floor, flanked and surmounted by carved stone ornament. Single-windows with rounded upper corners are at the 3rd floor of these bays. The main entrance is in the eastern bay, while the western one has a service entrance; inscribed on the stone panel above the main entrance is "GARMENT WEAR ARCADE". In between are three storefronts of varied design. The middle bays of the 2nd & 3rd floors have triple show-windows in ornamental brown metal frames, with intricately patterned spandrels.

The 4th floor has three windows per main bay, with wider single-windows in the end bays, all set within ornamental cast-stone piers and topped by ornamental cast-stone panels. The ornament of the piers extends up to the lower part of the 5th floor as well. Beginning at this floor, the western bay has deeply-recessed openings instead of windows, creating a small inset balcony at each floor.

The brick upper floors have the same window organization, with simple stone sills. The spandrels at the middle bays above the 8th floor are stone and match those at the 4th floor, marking a setback. The two end bays continue up to the 10th floor before setting back, with stone spandrels of a simpler design, creating the effect of projecting end towers. The setbacks are marked by ornamental cast-stone panel with circles inscribed within squares and simple cast-stone coping. The next, shallower, setback, at the 13th floor, runs across the full facade, with the same ornament at the top. There is another setback above the 15th floor, without the stone panels, and a final setback above the 17th floor at the middle bays only.

The north facade on 37th Street's only main difference from the south facade is the ornament above the entrances. Again, the east bay has the main entrance, and the west bay is a service entrance.

The east facade, visible at the south half of the building, is clad in reddish-brown brick, parged and painted beige at the south end, where there are a handfull of various windows. Toward the middle of the facade is a single bay of paired windows.

The ground floor on 36th Street is occupied by Adaptive Design Association, and on 37th Street by Miju Sewing.

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