327 West 36th Street

 office building  Add category

133-foot, 12-story office building completed in 1925. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is clad in light-grey brick above a 1-story rusticated limestone base. The original storefronts in the middle three bay have been removed and filled-in with beige stucco walls; the eastern one has a large garage door, and the center one has a smaller door with roll-down metal gate. The end bays have slightly-recessed entrances set under triangular pediments with carved foliate designs; the western bay is a service entrance, and the eastern bay has the main entrance, fronted by iron gates that slide to the sides.

The upper floors, organized into five bays as well, have bands of four windows divided by brown iron mullions in the middle bays, and double-windows in the end bays. The uninterrupted piers between bays slightly project, and are topped by stylized cast-stone capitals with swags at the 7th floor for the end bays, and at the 9th floor for the center bay, which extends higher before setting back. This creates the effect of a projecting central tower, but additional setbacks also create the effect of projecting end towers. The central, 9th-floor setback is surmounted by a triangular pediment with an inscribed circle. Other setbacks are marked by cast-stone panels with swags and cartouches, and by simple cast-stone coping. The exposed upper western elevation is clad in plain brown brick.