232 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

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200-foot, 16-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1925. Designed by Polhemus & Coffin, it is L-shaped, clad in cream-colored brick above a 2-story limestone base. The long facade along 37th Street is organized into three sections: a 2-bay section at the west, a 5-bay section (alternating wide and narrow bays) in the middle, and a 4-bay section at the east. The middle section has two large plate-glass storefronts flanking the main entrance. The entry has glass doors set between projecting piers that evolve into Gothic spires. Above the doors the address 232 MADISON AVE is carved in a Gothic script. Above, and between the spires, is a shallow arch topped by a pair of heraldic shields topped with crowns and surrounded by varied Gothic ornament. On either side of the middle section, there is a small entry, with a metal service door on the west side, and a glass storefront entrance on the east side, both topped by recessed square panels with a Gothic lattice pattern. There is an additional, matching storefront entrance at the far west end of the ground floor. The two bays of plate-glass storefronts on the west section, and the four bays on the east section, are defined by faceted engaged columns with medieval capitals. Each is connected to the other by robust stone voussoirs which create the illusion of pointed Gothic arches. The 2nd floor has large, square window openings at the east and west sections, and alternating paired and single narrower windows in the middle section.

The narrow east facade on the avenue has one main bay, also with a pointed arch containing a plate-glass storefront, flanked by two narrow side bays that are topped with lion's heads below voussoirs. An ATM has been installed in the northern side bay. The 2nd floor has a large square window opening in the center, flanked by two single-windows. All the 2nd-floor windows have beveled stone surrounds. The base is capped by a modillioned cornice that is interrupted by Art-Deco style buttresses at the piers, each extending down onto the 2nd floor and up into the 3rd floor, and most of which have crouching figures at their bases, appearing to bear the weight of the hefty white stone buttresses.

Above, angled brick piers rise uninterrupted for eight floors. The cream-colored brick is highlighted by darker brick in the spandrels; laid to further accentuate the upward design. At the 13th floor setback (in the center) the architects return to the Gothic motif, adding quatrafoils that coexist with beefy Art-Deco angles. The west and east sections set back above the 10th and 12th floors, ending at a roof line at the 14th floor. The center section continues up the to 16th floor. Behind the west section's front roof line, the angle of the L-shape extending into the middle of the block also rises to the 16th floor.

The west elevation is also clad in cream-colored brick, with a bay of paired windows at the front. Behind a chimney stack, the rest of the wall has a bay of single-windows, a bay of paired windows, and another bay of single-windows. The north elevation is clad in the same brick, with bays of single-windows; each bay is framed by vertical lines of dark-brown brick.

Upon opening, the building was filled primarily by silk companies. By the early years of the Great Depression the advertising and publishing industries were pushing the silk district out. Edwin Alendelson Advertising was among the first to move into No. 232, leasing space in 1931. It was followed by Farrar & Rinehart, publishers in 1933 which took the entire 14th floor. United University Presses, Inc., which changed its name to University Books, Inc. in 1936, also took space about this time. Meanwhile, the ground floor space had been renovated for Frank Rodriquez’s “luncheonette and store.”

By 1950 the building was filled almost entirely by publishing and advertising offices. The ground floor, until recently a luncheonette, was leased by the First Church of Christ, Scientists “for a reading room”. The facade was fully restored in 2015. The ground floor is now occupied by the First National Bank of Long Island, Kastel Kitchen Gallery, and Cosmetic Market.

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