New York Public Library Stacks Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, condominiums

151-foot, 12-story Neo-Classical multi-use building completed in 1911 as an annex building housing braille collections for the West 25th Street - Library for the Blind. Designed by Neville & Bagge, it is clad in white brick and terra-cotta above a 4-story limestone base.

The ground floor is articulated into five bays by piers with granite bases. The main entrance is in the east bay, with glass double-doors and a transom below a small, metal-and-glass canopy. The west bay has service entrance with black metal double-doors below a double-window. The middle three bays house commercial spaces, with glass double-doors in the outer ones, and black metal infill in the center bay. The ground floor is capped by a stone band carved with "NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY" and a cornice.

The 2nd-4th floors have five bays: the center bay is widest with paired double-windows. The next bay to either side is narrow, with a double-window, and the end bays have triple-windows. These all have black metal framing, and the bays are separated by thin, fluted, 3-story black iron pilasters. Within the outer limestone frame there are thin spandrels of white brick between floors, above tripartite panels of black iron.

The upper floors have a middle section of a center bay with triple-windows flanked by double-window bays; these are separated by brick pilasters, and the windows have black iron mullions. This middle section is framed by a beveled terra-cotta molding. The end bays have single-windows, and at the 11th floor the piers have oversized garlands and escutcheons, which are repeated on the 12th floor as well. The top floor is set off by a thin, projecting terra-cotta band, and has a wide 8-window band in the middle, and single-window end bays. The same terra-cotta molding surrounds the middle section. The facade is crowned by a black terra-cotta band, flat across the end bays and angled up to a flat gable at the middle.

In the late 1980s, all of the building's space was converted into commercial office and residential condominium space. The ground floor is occupied by The Hair Shop, and CUE Art Foundation.

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