Park 79

 apartment building, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

7-story Renaissance Revival residential building completed in 1899. Designed by Neville & Bagge, it was originally built as apartments. In the mid-1900s it became a single-room occupancy hotel for low-income tenants, before being renovated as a full-service hotel in 1985. It was sold in 2016, and converted back to residential use.

The facade is clad in light grey-brown brick above a 2-story, rusticated limestone base painted a cream color. The six bays are organized into three pairs, the outer ones closer together, and very slightly projecting at the upper floors. The ground floor has a grand entry portico at the center, split into three bays instead of two, with a wide set of stone steps interrupted halfway up to the doorway by four fluted Corinthian columns on plinths, behind which are four fluted Corinthian pilasters. In between the middle two are glass double-doors and a fanlight, covered by a navy-blue canvas canopy extending out over the stairs. To either side is a window set in a round-arch lined with an egg-and-dart molding and topped by a triangular pediment. The top of the portico has a band course with foliate ornament, an egg-and-dart molding, and a surmounting balustrade. All the other windows at the base are rather large and have surrounds with egg-and-dart moldings. Those on the ground floor have scale-patterned panels above, topped by cornices, and those on the 2nd floor have small, scrolled brackets. The outer bays have navy-blue clamshell canopies, and there are two flagpoles projecting from the 2nd floor outside of the two center bays. At the top of the 2nd floor is a frieze with swirling and flowing foliate ornament, interrupted partially at each window bay, and a crowning egg-and-dart molding.

The upper floors begin at a stone band course, where each bay has a pair of plinths for the fluted (outer bays) or spiral (middle bays) columns that frame the 3rd-floor windows, each topped by a Corinthian capital and carrying a tall stone lintel with ornament at the ends. The outer bays are topped by triangular pediments, and the middle bays by engaged balusters framed by paneled plinths that support the 4th floor's fluted columns at the two center bays; these are in turn crowned by triangular pediments. The 3rd floor is banded with cream-colored stone, and a string course runs below the 4th floor, with small bracket at the surrounds of the outer bays. These surrounds have egg-and-dart moldings, unlike those on the floors above, which are beveled and have brackets and cornices. At the outer bays, between the 4th & 5th floors, are stone spandrel panels decorated with encircled flowers and scrolled ornament.

The top floor is set off by a dentiled band course and is banded like the 3rd floor. All six round-arched windows have stone surrounds with Renaissance-ornamented pilasters and voussoirs, small scrolled keystones, and cornices on top. The facade is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with modillions, dentils, and a fluted fascia board with a flower flanked by ribbons at each bay.

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