Bricken Arcade South Building | office building, 1924_construction

 office building, 1924_construction

166-foot, 15-story office building completed in 1924. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it connects via an arcade to the Bricken Arcade North Building at 230 West 38th, which has a similar design. The south building is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone base, five bays wide. The ground floor has three stainless-steel and glass storefronts in the middle, and entrances at both ends. The main entrance is at the east end, with glass doors beneath gold metal panels. Letters spelling "BRICKEN ARCADE" are attached above the panels, and surmounted by an entablature with a pair of oval shields, dentils, wavy lines in a frieze, and a cornice. The west end has a service entrance, framed in granite, with a metal roll-down gate, and 5-paned glass transom. It is also topped by a dentiled cornice. Above a band course, the 2nd & 3rd floors have cast-iron framed tripartite windows with transoms, wider in the three center bays. At the western end bay, the westernmost window on each floor has been replaced by a metal railing, and has a recessed space behind it.

The upper floors are set off by a stone band course. They have triple-windows in the end bays, and four windows in the middle bays, each divided by an iron mullion. Most of the windows are subdivided into smaller panes. Like at the base, the westernmost windows in the west end bay are removed, and have metal frames fronting a recessed space. Each of the uninterrupted brick piers sits on a stone base, and the plain brick spandrels have stone sills. At the top of the 10th floor the piers around the end bays are decorated with oval shields and hanging ornament, and band courses with stone coping mark the beginnings of a series of cascading setbacks.

The center bay extends up to the 13th floor, creating a central tower, with the same stone shields at the tops of the piers, framing a triangular pediment above the 13th floor. The setbacks continue up above this pediment, marked by simple cast-stone coping. The upper east elevation is clad in dark reddish-brown brick, with a couple bays of small windows. The ground floor is occupied by KikiRiki women's clothing, Eliot women's clothing, and Mood Home fabrics.