158 West 27th Street

 office building  Add category

150-foot, 12-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1913. Designed by Browne & Almiroty, it is clad in brown brick above a 3-story limestone base with black iron and bronze infill. The 3-bay-wide middle section has black metal-and-glass storefronts at the ground floor, with a recessed glass double-doors in the western middle bay, and another glass door in the eastern one. The 2nd-3rd floors have triple-windows with black iron framing; the 2nd-floor windows have stacks of three panes, and the 3rd-floor windows are grouped under a wide, shallow arch. The bays are all separated by horizontal and vertical spandrels decorated with bands of bronze diamond patterns with flowers. The east end bay has the main entrance, with glass double-doors between wide sidelights and below a transom, framed by fluted stone pillars on black granite bases and topped by carved eagles supporting an entablature; the doors are covered by a suspended glass-and-steel canopy. The west end bay has a freight entrance with black metal double-doors next to glass double-doors with a tall transom. The pillars are absent, but the pair of eagles remains, with small shields at the ends of the entablature. The 2nd floor at the end bays has 3-over-2 windows, with similar windows at the 3rd floor under shallow arches. The patterned spandrels are repeated between these two floors. The base features a large stone drape at the center, flanked by shields.

The upper floors have triple-windows in the middle bays, with thin iron mullions separating the windows, and the same patterned spandrels separating the bays and floors, only they are all black - without the gilded bronze coloring. Brick piers frame the end bays, which have two single-windows separated by a brick pilaster. The 12th floor is brick, with nine windows across the middle, and projecting, half-octagonal pillars on the piers framing the end bays.

The side elevations are also brown brick, with two bays of single-windows at the front edge, and seven more single-windows toward the back. The ground floor is occupied by a Planet Fitness.