421 West 43rd Street (New York City, New York)

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5-story Romanesque/Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1882. It is clad in grey brick with white-painted and light-grey stone and terra-cotta trim. A low, central stoop with grey stone stones and white stone sidewalls with iron railings leads up to a black wood-and-glass door, sidelight, and transom. The entrance is framed by white stone pilaster that curve and bow out toward the tops, where stylized capitals support an entablature with a cartouche emblazoned with the number 421. There is some delicate floral decoration on the pilasters, and the entablature is topped by a band course capping the ground floor (projecting out over the entry) that has a pattern of repeating cartouches, resembling a wave motif. To either side of the entrance is a wide window flanked by paneled stone pilasters with small Ionic capitals; cartouches highlight the entablatures that are topped by thin cornices. Below each window, the stone basement level also has wide windows.

The upper floors have four bays of single-windows. The outer bays at the 2nd floor have full surrounds, with egg-and-dart moldings, escutcheons, tiny rosettes, and a thin cornice with egg-and-dart molding. The middle two bays have hooded lintels with leafy scrolled brackets, elaborate Renaissance ornament, and cornices. The 3rd & 4th floors have bracketed sills, and brick quoins at the sides of each window; they are topped by flat stone lintels with decorative foliate end blocks and keystones. The 5th floor is set off by a band course with a shell pattern and an egg-and-dart molding. The 5th-floor windows are round-arched, with quoined panels in the piers, and egg-and-dart moldings along the arches.

A rustic-red metal fire escape runs down the middle two bays of the facade, which is crowned by a metal roof cornice of the same color, with console brackets, dentils, and a frieze of garlands.