Scheffel Hall (New York City, New York)

 interesting place, commercial building

4-story German Renaissance-revival commercial building completed in 1895. Designed by Henry Adams Weber & Hubert Drosser at a time when the area south of it was known as Kleindeutschland ("Little Germany") due to the large number of German immigrants who lived nearby, it served as a beer hall and restaurant. The building was based off of Friedrichsbau at Heidelberg Castle, and was named after Joseph Viktor von Scheffel, a German poet and novelist. It later became known as Allaire's, a name still inscribed on the building.

Later, in the late 1920s, the building was used by the German-American Athletic Club. By 1939 it became the German-American Rathskeller, and then Joe King's Rathskeller. Beginning in the 1970s, it was the home of Fat Tuesday's, a well-known jazz club, and the restaurant Tuesday's, which lasted until the early 21st century. In subsequent years it was a yoga and pilates studio and today is unoccupied.

The facade is clad in white terra-cotta above a white cast-iron storefront ornamented with intricate strap-and-jewel work, diamond-point rustication, and cartouches. The ground floor is articulated into three bays - the northern bay, which contains the storefront entrance , and the center window bay are considerably wider than the southern bay, which contains the alternate entrance. The piers carry an iron
entablature with decorative frieze enriched with strap-and-jewel-work. Suspended from the center piers are original stylized foliate curving wrought-iron brackets for globe lights.

The terra-cotta-clad upper floors are richly articulated with pilaster orders, heavy entablatures, and moldings. At the 2nd and 3rd stories three evenly spaced windows bays contain aluminum 1-over-1 window sash. The 2nd-floor windows have brackets beneath their molded sills and are framed with Tuscan pilasters resting on high bases. The bases are ornamented with shields and swags and the lower part of the pilasters are decorated with strapwork. Console brackets are set above pilasters in the stylized Doric entablature which is also enriched with shields and strapwork metopes.

The 3rd floor features a stylized Ionic order with fluted pilasters resting on high bases ornamented with jewel-work and swags . The entablature above the 3rd-floor windows is enriched with a strapwork frieze. At the attic floor, the shaped gable features heavy C-scrolls at its base, a S-curved pediment, and a full entablature topped by a lunette. The attic has a double-window set off by a pedimented surround. The gable is also enriched with heavy strapwork moldings, a pair of cartouches, and a blind oculus which has been articulated to look like a leaded-glass window.

archive.org/details/landmarksofnewyo0006eddiam_h5l5/pag...
s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1959.pdf