Gotham Mini Storage / DHL Building

 mini storage, commercial building

7-story Art-Deco storage/commercial building completed in 1930. Built as a warehouse, it is clad has limestone piers (now painted bright yellow) and spandrels with yellow limestone bands below dark-red brick. The ground floor along the avenue is red brick at the south end (with the bays defined by light-grey-painted limestone piers), while the north half was remodeled in a modern style in 2012, when the current mini storage company opened here. It is now faced in panels painted bright red, with plate-glass windows, silver metal piers, and angled, diagonal elements framing some windows and the glass double-doors into the storage lobby. The upper floors are organized into seven bays, each with five window panes divided by black metal mullions. The lower roof line is at the 6th floor, where the piers are topped by Art-Deco forms, and the upper spandrel has five boxes of brick surrounded by yellow stone. The 7th floor is set back from the lower roof line.

The south facade on 38th Street has a 1-story section at the west end that the rest of the building wraps around. Clad in brick, it has a metal serviced door at the west end, the main entrance to the DHL Express lobby near the center, with metal-framed glass double-doors to the right of a large metal-framed window, and a smaller double-window in black metal framing on the right. The 1-story roof line has a stone coping with a rounded pediment in the middle, above a recessed brick panel. The rest of the south facade has five bays of unequal size, with grey stone piers. There are garage doors with roll-down metal gates in two of the middle bays, and a service door in the bays to either side; the east end bay has no openings. At the upper floors the west bay has two small single-windows, the wide next bay has large 5-over-3 windows in black metal framing, the middle bay has 3-over-3 windows that are otherwise similar, and the last two bays have tall windows of three and four panes, respectively, not sub-divided into three tiers. These last two begin at the 3rd floor, however, as the 2nd floor has no openings at the east two bays, and is painted bright-yellow, with red lettering spelling DHL. The piers and spandrels are also painted bright-yellow. The roof line is similar to the east facade, and the west end bay rises to the 7th floor, where there is a double-window (the piers at this level are brick and not painted). The south-facing facade above and behind the 1-story section at the end is painted bright-yellow, and has three bays of windows - the first is 4-over-3, the middle one 3-over-3, and the east one a narrower 3-over-3. The west facing wall above the 1-story section is also yellow, with a 4-over-3 window, and a 1-over-3 window. The 7th-floor brick is not painted.

The north facade on 39th Street spans 11 bays, with yellow-painted piers. The ground floor has a continuation of the modern, red design at the east end, with a service door. The rest of the ground floor is painted light-grey, with a few brick piers. Below the 2nd & 3rd bays is a garage door. The next (wider) bay has two loading docks separated by a brick pier. The next bay has a metal service door next to a narrow window, and the next two are combined into a wide garage door. The next two have a smaller garage door paired with black metal louvers, and the second from west end bay has a triple-window below a vent. The end bay has another garage door. The upper floors have, from east to west, 4-pane windows, 3-pane windows, 3-over-3 windows, a brick bay with two single-windows, 4-over-3 windows, 3-over-3 windows, 3-over-3 windows, 4-over-3 windows, 3-over-3 windows, 3-over-3 windows, and 4-over-3 windows. The roof line is like the other facades, with the brick bay extending up to the 7th floor.

The west facade is completely painted yellow, and has six bays of various width windows on the 5th & 6th floors, with the southern two bays extending down onto the lower floors, as well as having a few other small windows on the 4th floor. The roof line is simple, without the ornament seen on the other facades.