4 Manhattan Avenue (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / Manhattan Avenue, 4
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6-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1904. Designed by George F. Pelham, it is very similar in ornament to the rest of the buildings lining this side of the block, all built at the same time, clad in red brick with limestone trim. Nos. 4 & 8 are identical, with ground floors painted beige, both and brick and the stone banding. The entrance is centered atop a wide and low 4-step stoop, with a steel-framed glass door, sidelights, and segmental-arched transom in a gilded, feathered molding. The banded piers flanking the segmental-arched entryway have large console brackets at the tops, with gilded medallions below each one. They carry, along with a keystone above the transom, a projecting central section of the cornice that caps the ground floor. To either side of the entrance is a wide single-window and a narrower single-window, with carved panels of foliate ornament below. On the left is a basement areaway behind a black iron fence.

The upper floors have a bay of paired windows in the center, and an outer bay of paired windows on either side. The windows in the center bay have splayed stone lintels from the 2nd-5th floors (with scrolled keystones at the 5th floor), and the outer bays are framed by keyed stone surrounds. They have lintels at each floor that are adorned by small scrolled keystones with small hanging bellflowers below and small flourishes of foliate ornament to the sides. There are cornices between floors in these bays, with a shallow rounded pediment topping the 2nd floor, filled by an escutcheon. Spandrels between the 3rd-4th and 4th-5th floors in these bays have Renaissance ornament. A stone cornice caps the 5th floor, with a small cartouche at both outer bays. The 6th floor has stone banding, and a fluted stone pilaster between the paired windows, with elaborate bases. The roof line has a tall, plain stone parapet, where a metal roof cornice was likely originally seen. A white iron fire escape runs down the middle of the facade.
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Coordinates:   40°47'41"N   73°57'50"W
This article was last modified 4 years ago