Barbey Building

 office building  Add category

149-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1909 for Henry Barbey. Designed by Delano & Aldrich, it was originally called the Barber Building. It is clad in red brick and reddish-orange terra-cotta above a beige-painted limestone ground floor, three bays wide. The central entrance has been modernized, and the flanking bays have had the former show-windows filled in. The only ornament remaining on the ground floor is the egg-and-dart molding across the top, with a pair of hanging dendrils above the entrance.

This building is the only known example of a loft building by Delano & Aldrich, a firm that was well-known for designing clubs and large private residences for New York’s elite. The building’s original owner, Henry Barbey, shared the same address as Delano & Aldrich and traveled in the same social circles. The pattern of the fenestration creates a dramatic monumental opening on the façade, which is crowned by an elaborate Baroque pediment.

The upper floors have brick end piers, framing a central section of triple-windows in the end bays and four windows in the middle bay (the 2nd floor larger 3-over-3 and 4-over-3 multi-pane windows filling the bays, with black iron frames. The other windows are separated by terra-cotta mullions, and the bays themselves are separated by terra-cotta piers with projecting, fluted half-columns with cross-tied ribbons and garlanded urns between the 2nd & 3rd floors. The spandrels are also terra-cotta, with decorative patterns.

At the top all three bays are encompassed under a broad and shallow arch. Above the middle bay is a large panel, with a cartouche flanked by oversized swags. There are two simpler outlined panels over the end bays. The crown of the facade follows the gentle curve of the arch below, capped by an ornamental coping; it projects higher up at the middle, with large urns at the ends of the middle section, swooping up to a cartouche at the peak. The west elevation is clad in red brick, with single-window openings.

It later became the US offices of the Hudsons Bay Corporation until they relocated to Brookfield Place. The ground floor is occupied by Jay Conferece, and Matto Espresso. In 2025, the building was made a New York City landmark.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2687.pdf
www.nytimes.com/1908/07/12/archives/architectural-featu...
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c033529567?urlappend=%3Bseq=341...
www.ewhowell.com/portfolio/hudsons-bay-trading-company/