77 Irving Place (New York City, New York)

 mixed-used building  Add category

5-story mixed-use building originally completed in 1850 as a townhouse mansion for Maria Colgate and her brother, Clinton Gilbert Colgate, whose parents, William Colgate and his wife, the former Maria Gilbert, still lived in the mansion at No. 22 East 23rd Street where the siblings had grown up. William Colgate was the founder of the hugely successful William Colgate & Co., which would go on to become the Colgate-Palmolive Company. By 1867, the Colgates had all left the house, and it was operated as a high-end boarding house for years.

In 1907 it was sold to the Investors' and Traders' Realty Company, and the following year architects Thain & Thain were commissioned to convert the lower floors for commercial purposes. The stoop was removed, the residential entrance moved around the corner, and storefronts of black iron, stone, and glass installed along the ground and 2nd floors.

The upper floors on the north facade are clad in red-painted brownstone, with three bays of single-windows in segmental-arched stone surrounds, shorter at each floor. The facade is crowned by a black wooden roof cornice with console brackets and panels. The upper floors along Irving place are clad in red-painted brick, and don't extend all the way south to the end of the 2-story base. There is a narrow double-window in the middle, and two single-window bays to either side, except for the top floor which is missing one bay. The windows are all segmental-arched, with simple stone sills but no surrounds. The roof cornice continues along this facade.

Initial commercial tenants were the fur store of Herman Schmerl, and the private detective firm run by Thomas Smith. In the early 1930's the Gramercy Book Shop operated from one of the commercial spaces, and the following decade Sari Dienes' art gallery, Studio 5, was here. The lower two floors are now occupied by Friend of a Farmer restaurant, NYC Rejuvenation Clinic, and Caffe Panna ice cream and coffee shop. The upper floors contain 14 apartment units.