Fourth Avenue Building

 office building, commercial building, 1910s construction

213-foot, 16-story, Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1910. Designed by Charles A. Valentine, it is clad in light-brown brick and beige terra-cotta above a 3-story rusticated limestone base. The main entrance is located at the south end of the narrower west facade on the avenue, with glass-and-bronze double-doors in a round-arch. A matching arch is at the north end, with an entrance into the commercial storefront in between, which has two bays of plate-glass show-windows in bronze framing. The 2nd-3rd floors have tall tripartite windows in the two middle bays, with black iron mullions and spandrel panels between the floors decorated with gold panels, outlines, and dots, as well as shields and ribbons at the center panels. Above these windows on the 3rd floor are gilded bands of rounded, floral ornament extending from a central gold cartouche and then hanging down the ends of the 3rd-floor windows. The end bays have single-windows at both floors, and the base is capped by a cornice. It held the offices of Cauldwell-Wingate, the prominent construction firm.

The north facade along 27th Street spans eight bays, with double-height, segmental-arched openings at the middle bays. Within each is a ground-floor storefront bay, with a canvas awning above each bay of windows. The 2nd floor has tripartite windows like those on the west facade, only arched, and the spandrels below match those between the 2nd & 3rd floors on the west facade. The 3rd floor has three smaller windows in each middle bay, and the piers are decorated with geometric designs at the tops. The west end bay has another storefront section at the ground floor, while the east end bay has a freight entrance with black metal doors. At the 2nd floor the end bays also have arched tripartite windows (but without the black-and-gold spandrels below) and the 3rd floor has wider single-windows.

The upper floors also have three windows in each bay, separated by the brick piers (with wider single-windows in the end bays). The windows within each bay are divided by terra-cotta pilasters, which also line the edges of the bays, and terra-cotta spandrels separate the floors - the center panel of each bay is decorated with a shield and ribbons, and the outer panels have vertical ribs. A stone cornice sets off the 13th floor, where there are large, elaborate brackets at the piers, supporting a broader cornice setting off the 14th floor. The top two floors have wider paired windows instead of three smaller windows, and they are round-arched on the 16th floor, with each pair grouped under a larger arch. The piers on the top three floors are ornamented terra-cotta, with rounded colonnettes between the paired windows.

The upper floors on the west facade have only two bays. The east- and south-facing facades are clad in brown brick without ornament. The east elevation has a bay of double-windows at the front, followed by three single-windows bays. The rear facade grows deeper by two steps as it moves east. The west section has a single-window bay near the end, and two bays of three windows. The middle section has a bay of paired windows and another bay at the junction with the east section, which has three bays of three windows.

The ground floor is occupied by Sarabeth's restaurant.