Rolf's Restaurant (New York City, New York)

 restaurant, interesting place, commercial building, German cuisine

3-story commercial building completed in 1840 as a stable and carriage house for Kelly's Stables. By 1905 the ground floor was occupied by a saloon, with apartments above, and then was a speakeasy during Prohibition. It has now been long-occupied by Rolf's, a German restaurant with fanciful and over-the-top Christmas decorations.

The facade is clad in ruddy brown-painted brick. On the ground floor facing the avenue, the restaurant storefront has wooden double-doors at the chamfered corner, with a sloped slate roof over them extending to the south across a triple show window. The upper floors have three bays of single-windows.

The north facade on 22nd Street has a mural of a pastoral German scene next to the entry corner, also covered by the sloped roof. The lower half of the ground floor to the east is painted a brighter orange color. There are three openings with metal vent grilles, and at the east end is an entrance to the upper floors, with a glass door in a light-grey granite surround next to a metal service door. The 2nd floor has seven bays of single-windows, with a smaller window at the far east end. There is a roof deck topping the 2nd floor at the east third of the building. The 3rd floor has five bays of windows, with the middle one much narrower than the others.

www.6sqft.com/the-urban-lens-inside-the-christmas-wonde...