Grand Central Building

 office building  Add category

227-foot, 19-story office building completed in 1928. Designed by Buchman & Kahn, it is clad in brown brick and lighter-colored stone. The ground floor has entrances at both end bays, with the glass-doored main entrance at the east, and a service entrance with metal doors at the west. Both are recessed (the service entrance slightly deeper) and framed in reddish-tan granite. The recessed wall of the service entrance is brick, and the main entrance is topped by a stainless steel panel. The top half of both entrance bays is faced in light-tan stone blocks with three bands of decorative blocks with red-colored terra-cotta geometric shapes. Between the entrances are three storefronts of glass and black metal, with their own recessed entries. Above the storefronts is a black metal band and a narrow band of short windows, surmounted by a stone band with dentils at the bottom and top edges, framing larger panels of red- and black-colored terra-cotta decorative shapes.

At the 2nd-3rd floors, the three middle bays are divided by fluted stone piers with red terra-cotta geometric ornament at the bases and tops. There is a tripartite windows in each bay, with dark-brown metal mullions. The spandrels have the same ornament and dentils courses as the band topping the middle of the ground floor. The end bays are brown brick, with paired windows. At the top of the 3rd floor is a stone band with red terra-cotta arrowlike shapes. At the next six floors the middle bays have narrow brick piers separating nine single-windows per floor, with paired windows still in the end bays. Tan stone bands with decorative square panels run across the end bays at the 9th & 10th floors. The 10th floor of the middle section has stone-faced piers, and decorative stone spandrels; the middle bays set back above this floor.

The end bays extend up to the 12th floor, creating projecting end-pavilions, before also setting back. The top floors have cascading setbacks every two floors, at both the middle and end bays, with double-windows divided by metal mullions at the end bays, and triple-windows in the middle bays.

The rear facade is also clad in brown brick, with five bays of triple-windows, except for the 17th-18th floors, which are faced in stone. There are setbacks at the same levels as the front facade, only shallower. Various brick-clad mechanical penthouses rise from the main roof. The side elevations are clad in brown and darker reddish-brown brick, with a bay of paired windows near the front (up to the 2nd setback) and a bay of single-windows near the back edge (ending at the 2nd setback). The ground floor is occupied by Green Girl Printing & Messenger, Dunkin' Donuts, and The American Barber Institute.