The Gramercy House

 Art Deco (architecture), apartments

184-foot, 17-story Art-Deco residential building completed in 1931. Designed by George and Edward Blum, it is clad in beige brick with a 3-story orange-brick base, colorful terra-cotta elements, and a marble water table. Two light wells on the south facade divide the bulk into three unequal wings, while there are three larger light wells at the rear of the building. The front light wells are filled with small gardens with Art-Deco cast-iron low fences at the building line and there is also a large garden at the west end of the building with a tall cast-iron fence with similar design motifs to the low fences. The main entrance is centered in the middle wing, with stainless-steel-and-glass double-doors below a rounded, blue canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. The doorway is set in a large, 2-story entrance surround spanning three bays that is clad in pale-orange tiles and polychrome terra-cotta in hues of turquoise, green, ochre and navy, creating a southwestern color scheme. These bays are framed by three stylized terra-cotta waterfalls, while above each bay at the top of the 2nd floor (and continuing at the 2nd floor in an uninterrupted line around the rest of the building, including the light wells) is a colorful band of terra-cotta. It has pointy zig-zags like mountain ranges above a gentle wave pattern like a river. The base is topped by a broad band of plain orange terra-cotta.

Above the base, the corners of each wing are highlighted by small but exquisite quoins of diagonally placed bricks. The center wing has four bays of triple-windows, slightly narrower at the ends bays and around the doorway at the bottom two floors; each window section is also divided into three parts vertically, and they have salmon-colored framing. The east wing has five triple-window bays, with a single-window on either side of the 2nd bay from the east. At the lower two floors the windows are replaced by storefronts with more Art-Deco colored terra-cotta accents on the east end where the site slopes up somewhat and the two floors merge into one; to the west they are still two separate floors, and the ground floor has only a wood-and-glass door next to a small window, a larger single-window set down low, and a triple-window also set down low. Both of these wings have orange terra-cotta bands above the 9th, 12th, 14th, and 16th floors, with a setback above the 16th floor (the west bay of the center wing sets back one floor lower).

The rear wall of the east light wells has four single-windows, and at the west light well a triple-window, single-window, and double-window. The side-facing walls of the light wells have two single-windows (one smaller than the other), except for the east-facing side wall of the west light well, which also has triple-window at the middle floors. The orange bands continue around and through the light wells.

The west wing has a double-window and two triple-windows in the middle, with a single-window and triple-window to the right, and a triple-window, single-window and another triple-window to the left. The ground floor has two more secondary entrances. This wing has more setbacks, above the ends of the 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th, and 16th floors, with angled corners at the middle bays, creating shallow terraces with orange railings.

The east facade on the avenue has storefronts lining the entire base, with the upper floors having, from south to north, two single-windows, two triple-windows, two double-windows, a triple-window, a single-window, and two more triple-windows, and some of the bays vary in width.

The north facade has a single-window bay on the outer wings, and two such bays on the middle two. The west facade has a mix of triple-windows and single-windows. The building was converted to a co-op in 1984, with 335 apartments. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by Club Pilates, ProHealth Pharmacy, and The UPS Store.

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