Capitol Building

 apartment building  Add category

135-foot, 12-story Romanesque-revival cooperative-apartment building completed in 1926 as on office building. Designed by Shampan & Shampan, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 2-story limestone base.

There are three large, 2-story round-arches at the middle of the base, the tops lined with rope moldings and square flower panels. In between them at at the 2nd floor are a pair of Celtic medallions. The ground floor has the main entrance in the center bay, with glass-and-bronze double-doors, sidelights, and transom. The wider end bays have glass-and-metal storefronts, as does the east arched bay. The west arched bay has a freight entrance. The 2nd floor has tripartite windows in the three arches, and the end bays have wide tripartite windows with black metal louvers replacing the outer panes. There are iron spandrel panels between the two floors of the base, which is capped by a stone band with pointed dentils along the bottom edge.

The upper floors have three bays of paired windows in the middle, and end bays of three windows each, all separated by brick mullions and piers. The windows are divided into 3-over-2 panes, and the brick spandrels have trios of vertical brick rectangles. The end bays set back above the 8th floor, which has round-arched windows, and the setbacks are marked by projecting, crenelated and scalloped bands. The middle bays extend up to the 9th floor with round-arched windows before a more shallow setback, also with a crenelated, scalloped band. The middle section of the 10th & 11th floors have angled ends, and the ends bays set back again above the 10th floor. The center section of the 12th floor has angled ends, with the front part set back from the rear half.

As the center of the facade narrows at the top floors, the windows bays shrink to single-windows at the ends. The 12th floor has two segmental-arched triple-windows at the front, with similar windows on each angled facet, and another set on the north-facing bay between each facet. At the top floors, there are panels of darker, projecting bricks highlighting the areas above the windows. The roof line is marked by a crenelated, scalloped parapet.

The side elevations are clad in dark-brown brick and have numerous bays of single-windows, reducing at the front and back where the setbacks occur. The building was converted to a residential co-op in 1984, with 46 apartments. The ground floor is occupied by Greentex Upholstery Supplies, Carlyle Cleaners, and Shulman Paper Company.