Gilbert Building

 office building, high-rise, Neo-Gothic (architecture), 1922_construction

186-foot, 16-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1922. Designed by George & Edward Blum, it was originally called the Gilbert Building. It is clad in buff-colored brick above a 3-story limestone base. It is irregularly organized into four wide bays on the west, and another wide bay on the east that is flanked by a narrower bay on either side. At the ground floor these contain a black marble main entrance with glass doors (at the right) and a pointed-arch service entrance (at the left). The far western bay has another pointed-arch freight entrance. The other have storefronts of dark-tinted glass; the storefront in the 3rd bay from the west has a recessed entry in the middle, topped by a pointed-arch in the glass transom. The storefronts all have low, ribbed stone bases at the sidewalk level, and are topped by large metal panels with Gothic tracery. The freight entrance at the west bay has a similar panel, only shorter in the center to accommodate the point of the arch. The 2nd & 3rd floors have wide, tripartite show-windows in the main bays, and single-windows in the two narrow bays. The entire base is set within a stone enframement.

The upper floors continue the irregular bay organization, with four bays of three windows each on the west, and one wide bay of five windows on the east, corresponding to the entrance bay in the base. All the windows have simple stone sills and brick spandrel with four vertical bands of recessed brick. The bays are defined by uninterrupted wide and narrow brick piers; those at the wide bay have angled projections running up their full height. The middle three bays set back above the 13th floor, while the end bays extend up to the 14th before setting back, creating slightly-projecting end towers that have angled corners up to the next main setback at 16th-floor, the main roof line. There is a small 2-story penthouse at the east end, rising above the main roof line. The setbacks are marked by cast-stone ornament including shields, roundels and diamond shapes, and cast-stone coping.

On 40th Street, there is a low 2-story extension from the base of the main building. It is clad in limestone, with large granite bases on the piers, dividing the facade into three main bays and a narrow end bay at the east end. The narrow bay has a pointed-arch service entrance at the ground floor and a single-window at the 2nd. The other bays have modernized storefronts and silver metal and plate-glass. The Gothic tracery panels between the two floors have been recreated in matching silver metal. The panels and 2nd floor of each bay are set within stone enframements. A simple stone coping caps the roof line. The rear of the tower on 39th is visible above the lower 2-story structure; clad in beige brick, it has four uneven bays of three windows in the middle, four windows at the west, and two windows at the east. This facade also has set-back end bays with windows in a variety of sizes and shapes.

The building is home to the corporate office of Calvin Klein apparel; the ground floor on 40th Street is occupied by Lot-Less Closeouts.

usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1923-09.pdf