Bricken Broadway Building

USA / New Jersey / West New York / Broadway, 1385
 office building  Add category

305-foot, 23-story Neo-Classical/Art-Deco office building completed in 1926. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is also known as the Bridal Building, due to the large number of wedding dress designers and other wedding-related businesses that have leased space here over the years. It is clad in brown brick above a 3-story white-painted limestone base. The east facade on Broadway spans five bays, with nine bays along 38th Street.

The main entrance is in the 2nd from southernmost bay on Broadway, framed in grey granite, with a recessed glass wall and revolving doors. There are metal-and-glass storefronts in the other bays. On 38th Street, there are storefront in each bay except the 4th from the west, which has a freight entrance. The storefronts in the 2nd-5th bays from the east are split into upper and lower levels. The 2nd & 3rd floors have wide tripartite show-windows with dark-brown metal frames; each has an inward-notched upper corner. The white-painted metal spandrels between these two floors are adorned with elaborate high reliefs of grape vines. The base is capped by a stone band course with modillions and roundels.

The upper floors have three windows in each bay, with uninterrupted wide and narrow piers largely devoid of ornament up to the first setback at the 16th floor, where they have cast-stone ornamental capitals, connect by ornamental tiled-roof sections. Below, each of the windows has a stone sill, and the brick spandrels have simple brickwork patterns. On Broadway, the middle bay doesn't set back until the 18th floor, and is organized as a double-height arcade of four stone columns supporting round-arches. On West 38th Street the center of the facade is organized as two such arcades, with a similar arcade rising between them on the next two floors. The center arcade on both facades is surmounted by a steep-angled copper mansard roof. The upper setbacks are marked by large scale brick corbelling and patterning.

The west elevation is clad in dark reddish-brown brick, with three bays of double-windows, and a partial bay of smaller single-windows on the lower half. The ground floor is occupied by Midtown 38 Wines, the entrance to Crunch Fitness (on the 2nd floor), East Coast Trimmings, Beatnic Vegan restaurant, Cava restaurant, and Claire's fashion accessories.
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Coordinates:   40°45'10"N   73°59'16"W
This article was last modified 2 years ago