5 West 37th Street

 office building, Neoclassical (architecture), 1921_construction

150-foot, 12-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1921. Designed by Neville & Bagge, it is five bays wide, clad in brown brick above a 4-story limestone base. The ground floor has entrances at both ends, both framed in stone surrounds with squat, grey granite bases. The main entrance, at the east, has brass-and-glass doors and a rounded green canvas canopy. The surround has elaborate carved stone decoration, including a shield and various foliate ornament and handing pendants. The west entrance has metal service doors with a glass transom and lacks the stone ornament on the surround. The middle section has a restaurant storefront with wood, metal and plate-glass, and a recessed central entry.

The 3-story piers framing the end bays are rusticated and support an entablature at the top of the 3rd floor, topped by a patterned band course and with roundels above each pier. The 2nd & 3rd floors have tripartite windows in rust-red-colored iron frames (narrower at the end bays). The iron spandrels between the these floors have rows of circles topped by a Greek-fret motif. The two iron pilasters separating the three middle bays are decorated with an organic pattern. The 4th floor has evenly-spaced bays, with triple-windows divided by iron mullions. The stone piers are ornamented with projecting stone moldings and cartouches. The base is capped by a modillioned stone cornice.

The upper floors have triple-windows with iron mullions, between brick piers. The spandrels are stone with panels of carved ornament at each window. The 10th floor is topped by a stone cornice with elaborate brackets at the piers. Above these, and running up the center of the piers on the 11th-12th floors are fluted engaged columns with encircling ribbons; at the top of the facade the columns are surmounted by oversized brackets with various classical ornament. The stone roof cornice sections in between feature a row roundels, dentils, and egg-and-dart molding, and a row of small flat-arch shapes along the top.

The west elevation is clad in various shades of brick, with a bay of single-windows near the front. The ground floor is occupied by Reichenbach Hall German restaurant.