516 West 50th Street (New York City, New York)

 commercial building  Add category

5-story Romanesque-revival commercial building completed sometime around 1880. It is clad in red brick above a ground floor that has been altered and refinished in white stucco. There are two large, slightly-recessed window bays at the center, both with an aluminum-framed double-window with smaller, square transom panes on top and blue metal panels at the bottom, behind blue-painted iron fencing. The west end has the main entrance, with a blue metal-and-glass door, and the east end has a blue metal service door. A broad, dark grey band caps the ground floor.

The upper floors are divided into four bays of paired windows by slightly-projecting brick piers with some red terra-cotta floral ornament at each floor. The windows on the 2nd floor are round-arched, with brick voussoirs, brown terra-cotta shoulders, and thin, vertical strips of red terra-cotta floral ornament between each pair. The 3rd & 4th floors have segmental-arched windows with curved brick lintels. An elaborately patterned red iron balcony fronts most of each floor. At the roof line there is a black iron parapet between each brick pier, each angled slightly outward and extending slightly above the piers, and each having a row of six roughly T-shaped cutouts.