345 Park Avenue South

 office building  Add category

177-foot, 12-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1913. Designed by William H. Whittal, it is also known as the Armory Building due to its location next door to the 69th Regiment Armory. The facades are clad in light buff-colored brick above a 3-story, white-painted limestone base. The piers have grey granite bases, as do the large plate-glass windows in the ground-floor storefront bays. The west facade along the avenue spans ten bays, with the main entrances in the middle two, which have 2-story unpainted surrounds. At the ground floor both bays have glass double-doors below pointed-arch fanlights. The piers here project out with angled sides, and also have Gothic paneling. There is a row of small Gothic arches in the spandrels between the two floors, and the 2nd floor has segmental-arched double-windows in both bays. The bays to either side have triple-windows at the 2nd floor, with slender black iron colonnettes, and there are black iron spandrels with trios of arches separating the ground floor's modern storefronts, some of which have glass double-doors. The 2nd floor is capped by a dentil course.

The north facade on 26th Street spans six bays matching those on the west facade. There is a freight entrance in the east end bay. The south facade on 25th Street has four bays, with another freight entrance in the east bay. The 3rd floor is transitional, with triple-windows in each bay (with stone mullions), and a thin stone band capping the base, ornamented by small, widely-spaced, decorative squares.

The upper floors have triple-windows with beige metal mullions, except for the end bays, which have recessed triple-windows between brick mullions. The 10th floor is topped by a corbelled stone band, and the piers at the top two floors have pairs of engaged colonnettes running up them, with the end bays having larger, projecting, single colonnettes. The roof line has a pair of decorative string courses, with short finials rising above at each pier.

The rear, east-facing facade is clad in plain beige brick, and has a couple bays of triple-windows at the top floors. The ground floor is occupied by Upland restaurant, Test Now and Go, and a Bank of America branch.