Alexander Wilson Building

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223-foot, 19-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1927. Designed by Sloan & Robertson, it is clad in buff-colored brick with terra-cotta and cast-iron detailing above a 4-story beige and tan marble base. The south end of the ground floor has the main entrance, with deeply recessed doors in a vestibule with a hanging light fixture. The entry is outlined by a beveled frame decorated with very elaborate classical forms. A panel above the entry is also ornamented with elaborate carvings including birds, and a medallion in the center. At the 2nd floor is a dentiled cornice below four fluted Corinthian pillars framing three narrow windows. The wider north side of the ground floor has a modernize storefront, with a tripartite show-window with brown metal framing at the 2nd floor. There are three large circles adorning the three piers at the top of the 2nd floor. The 3rd & 4th floors are organized into five bays of single-windows; there are ornately-carved panels on the piers between the windows (with different designs in the two inner panels from the two outer ones). The base is capped by simple paneled stone spandrels alternating with squares of brick at the tops of the piers, and square panels with elaborate carvings at the tops of the end piers.

The upper floors continue the 5-bay organization. The brick piers run uninterrupted to the 12th-floor setback, where they have stone caps. Within each bay there are black cast-iron spandrels between floors with various ornament including tigers' heads and shields. There are some protruding air-conditioning units dotting the facade, especially at the higher floors. The end bays set back farther than the center bay, with angled bays connecting them. The center bays set back again to the level of the end bays above the 14th floor. The end bays set back again above the 15th floor, creating more angled bays, and the center bays set back above the 16th floor. The full facade has a last setback above the 17th floor; a tall mechanical penthouse rises from the south end of the roof.

The ground floor is occupied by a Chipotle Mexican Grill.

usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1928-01-1.PDF