132-138 Lexington Avenue (New York City, New York)

 townhouse, apartment building

A group of four 4-story residential buildings completed together sometime around 1860. They have since been divided into two or more units, with storefronts on the ground floors of Nos. 132 & 134. The upper floors are clad in cement stucco, painted a different shade at each building, except for No. 134, which is clad in red brick.

No. 132 has a plate-glass show-window at its storefront that is framed on the left by an elaborate white pier of foliate ornament. Recessed up a couple of steps to the right is an angled black wood-and-glass door to the storefront, and a paneled wooden residential door. No. 134 is brick-clad at its ground floor as well, and has a similar storefront/door layout to No. 132.

No. 136 is clad in brick on the ground floor. It has a single-window with an iron grille, and to the right is a small 3-step stoop to a slightly-recessed iron gate and door flanked by fluted white pilasters with a lintel on top. No. 138 has a shorter single-window with an iron grille, and to the right a small brick stoop leading to a black metal door. Both ends of the ground floor has slender, fluted black cast-iron pilasters.

The upper floors all have two bays of wide single-windows that are taller at the 2nd floors. At the 2nd floor of No. 134 these have been replaced by two sets of French doors opening onto shallow, dark-green iron balconies. All of the windows on this facade have white stone surrounds with simple keystones. The 2nd-floor windows at No. 136 have been shortened. At No. 138 another twin set of French doors replaces the 2nd-floor windows, with black iron Juliet balcony railings. Additionally, at the 3rd floor, mullions divide the windows into two halves.

The inner two buildings are crowned by wooden roof cornices with panels and thin brackets (singles at the ends, and paired near the middle). They are painted white and black, respectively. The outer two buildings have differing roof cornices, each of which is split into two halves, both of which have a panel framed by a bracket on each end. These are painted white at No. 132 and black at No. 138.

The ground floor of No. 132 is occupied by Vintage India NYC, and No. 134 by a massage parlor.