The Braender Condominium

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10-story residential building completed in 1902 for Philip Braender. Designed by Frederick C. Browne in a mix of French Renaissance, Spanish and Baroque styles, it is clad in light-beige brick and terra-cotta above a 2-story limestone base with a rough-faced grey granite water table. The building has a Moorish-style entrance court at the center of the east facade, entered through a scalloped arch springing from paneled pilasters with Renaissance ornament, bordered to the inside by double, fluted columns with mid-point banding and petals. Extending up from the pilasters are a pair of columns with vase-like bases, framing the arch; they support a modillioned cornice across this center section. Below is a panel carved with foliate ornament and a shield with the number 418. The cornice is surmounted by a Moorish lattice between end posts that are topped by urns at the 3rd floor. Above, the rest of the entrance court is open at the front.

The arched main entrance is centered in the north wall of the court, up a couple of steps and framed by a pair of slender columns and lanterns. To the left of the entrance the ground floor has two bays of double-windows with sloped metal roofs, while the upper floors match the south wall, with four single-windows and two smaller versions. The court also has a fountain, and a tempietto at the rear with white marble columns and a hanging lantern. The rear wall of the court has two bays of segmental-arched double-windows, covered by a black metal fire escape.

On either side of the entrance court, the east facade has two large, curved bays of two windows each, as well as another single-window in the flat space between the projecting, curved bays. At the 1st & 3rd floors there are round-arched. The base of the 3rd floor has a stone balcony on acanthus-leaf brackets, undulating along the curves, with a wrought-iron railing. The 3rd-floor windows are framed by columns resting on elaborate bases with urns and tulips (from which the columns sprout), topped by small Corinthian capitals. Stone surrounds with beveled moldings and small, projecting rosettes encompass the 3rd-floor windows, topped by dentiled cornices that project out farther at the ends above the columns. Those at the curved bays are also surmounted by shields and other ornament. On the floors above the windows have keyed stone surrounds, beveled at the inner edges and lined with small, projecting rosettes. At the curved bays on the 4th floor, torch-like brackets at the tops carry dentiled cornices that project out farther at the ends. The middle bays at the 5th & 9th floors have small, wrought-iron balconies, and the curved bays at the 9th floor have squared, stone balconies carried by gargoyles. These balconies originally had red tile roofs supported by columns, long since removed. The curved bays at the top floor have surrounds and columns like those at the 3rd floor. The facade was originally crowned by an elaborate roof cornice, now also removed.

The north facade on 102nd Street has three curved bays, with the eastern one a continuation of the east facade's northernmost bay, and the middle one positioned slightly left of center. The eastern flat section has three bays of windows with the middle one narrower. The western flat section has four bays, with the eastern two both slightly narrower and flanking a small bathroom window. The ornament and trim matches that on the east facade, with round-arched windows on the ground floor and 3rd floor - with the exception of the narrower window near the east end, which is square but with rounded corners, and the small bathroom window at the east, which is square-headed. The 3rd-floor balcony wraps all the way around the curved corner bay and continues on this facade, running all the way across. A black iron fire escape runs down the two bays to the left of the middle projecting bay, with landings extending over to the next bay to the left on some floors.

The rear, west elevation is clad in reddish-brown brick, with several bays of single-windows, some grouped in pairs. There is light well in the middle, and a fire escape on both sides.

The building was converted to condominiums in 1986, with 88 units.

www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/realestate/03scap.html