BRC Jack Ryan Residence (New York City, New York)

 homeless shelter  Add category

150-foot, 12-story Neo-Gothic/Romanesque homeless shelter completed in 1912 as an office building. Designed by Frederick C. Zobel, it is clad in light buff-colored brick above a 2-story limestone base. There are double-height openings at the base in each of the four bays (which have molded surrounds and notched upper corners), with a glass curtain wall in the east bay. The main entrance is in this bay, with glass double-doors. The middle two bays have glass-and-metal storefronts on the ground floor (with a set of glass double-doors in the west half of the western middle bay). The west end bay has a storefront window and a service entrance with steel double-doors below metal louvers. Steel spandrels separate the 2nd floor in the three west bays, which has tripartite windows in metal framing. Each of the piers has a floral roundel carved along the top of the base.

The 3rd & 4th floors have triple-windows with wide, black iron mullions. The 5th-9th floors have 4-window bays with smaller panes, including lower transom panes. The 3rd floor is topped by a terra-cotta band course with an elaborate shell pattern. At each pier this band expands into a carved base for the subtly-projecting middle portions of the piers on the 4th-10th floors. The 10th-12th floors have triple-windows and there are terra-cotta bases at each pier at the top of the 10th floor, interrupting a decorative terra-cotta band. Terra-cotta spandrels between the top three floors have decorative moldings, and the top floor's bays are capped by segmental-arches. At the roof line each bay is topped by a segment of modillioned terra-cotta cornice.

The shelter is run by the Bowery Residents' Committee for homeless adults diagnosed with mental illness. It has 200 beds. The ground floor is occupied by Senior Planet Exploration Center.

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