American Felt Building (New York City, New York) | condominium

 condominium  Add category

157-foot, 11-story Neo-Renaissance residential building completed in 1906 as an office and commercial loft building. Designed by Knight & Collins, it was home to the American Felt Company, which made felt used in pianos. In fact, the company was the suppliers of the hammer and bushing felt for the Steinway piano company.

The facade is clad in yellow-tan brick and stone above a 2-story limestone base. At each end is an entrance topped by a cornice. The main entrance, on the left, has metal-and-glass double-doors topped by a rounded black canvas canopy that extends out over the sidewalk, and a transom. It is flanked by a pair of fluted Doric columns and two low granite sidewalls topped by half-spheres. The secondary entrance to the right is fronted by a sideways black metal stoop screened behind a black metal panel, and has another set of double-doors below a transom. In between these bays is grey cast-iron infill with a tripartite window and two narrow outer panes separated by iron pilasters. Each window section also has an upper pane. The 2nd floor is similar at the middle bay, and the outer bays have double-windows in stone surrounds with Greek motifs. Both are topped by a carved ram's head at the broad band course that caps the base.

The 3rd floor is transitional, with banded brick piers and a stone band course across the top. It has six narrow single-windows in the middle bay and narrow paired windows at the end bays. The 4th-8th floors also have paired-window end bays, and the middle bay has windows like those seen at the base, with grey metal framing, mullions, and pilasters, culminating in a gentle arch at the 8th floor, with a scrolled keystone. The 9th floor is set off by stone bands with an egg-and-dart molding (bottom) and dentils (top). It has six single-windows in the middle, and paired windows at the ends.

The 10th floor has double-windows in stone surrounds at the end bays, which are terminated by cornices. The 2-story middle bay with stout iron pilasters separating the outer single-windows from the middle triple-window arrangement rises up to the 11th floor, where four oversized scrolled brackets carry a triangular pediment adorned with a large cartouche and garland.

The west elevation is brown brick with a short keyed return of the brick from the north facade at the front. It has several bays of double- and single-windows. The east elevation is also brick, with remnants of various painted signage faintly visible. Near the front is a bay of French windows opening onto projecting, black iron balconies, and at the rear is a single-window and another set of balconies.

The building was converted to condominiums in 1984, with 41 units. Residents have included Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, as well as Bret Easton Ellis, the author of American Psycho.