CUNY Guttman Community College

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6-story Art-Deco educational building completed in 1927 as a wing of the adjoining American Radiator Building (now the Bryant Park Hotel), housing a showroom for the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company. Designed by Harrison & Fouilhoux, it is clad in black granite and brick with gold accents, matching the main tower of the Bryant Park Hotel.

The double-height ground floor has a large wall of glass infill in which a revolving door is placed at the center. The 2nd floor, still clad in granite, has six bays of double-windows, and is topped by a modillioned gilded cornice set on large intricate corbel blocks, which display a variety of figures reminiscent of medieval prototypes. The 3rd floor has a distinctive window bay treatment. The bays are flanked by indented brick pilasters which are surmounted by gold pinnacles. Gold spandrel panels above the windows provide further contrast to the black brick. Intricately designed railings, incorporating S-curved snake designs, shield the bases of the 3rd-floor windows. The top floors are set back.

The rear, south facade on 39th Street is much simpler, with black brick above a ground floor of black granite, and window bands across each floor lacking ornament. The windows on the 6th floor are three panes high instead of the two on the other floors. The ground floor has a pair of metal service doors and a short, wide window set up high.

CUNY Guttman is a public community college of the City University of New York which opened in 2012 as the New Community College. In April 2013, the college was renamed following a $15 million endowment from the Stella & Charles Guttman Foundation. It is first new community college established by CUNY in over 40 years.

guttman.cuny.edu/
usmodernist.org/AF/AF-1937-08.pdf