Lincoln Building (New York City, New York)

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9-story Romanesque-revival office building completed in 1890 for Spingler-Van Buren family interests. Designed by R. H. Robertson, it is clad in light-colored smooth- and rock-faced Indiana limestone, brick and granite. The Union Square West facade is divided into four bays, and the 14th Street elevation into seven. Located in the northernmost bay of the east facade, the main entrance is composed of a massive round-arch with engaged columns and ornamented with a Norman zigzag molding; the arch spandrels contain Byzantine acanthus scroll carving. Although the ground floor has been altered, the original engaged colonnettes with Byzantine detailing remain on six of the seven 14th Street bays and on one side of the southernmost bay on Union Square West. The commercial bays are flanked by rock-faced limestone piers on granite bases. The three commercial bays on the east elevation are framed in black cast-iron, with fluted pillars around the retail doorway.

The first three office floors are limestone. The 2nd- and 3rd-story windows are set within a double-height arcade demarcated by smooth limestone piers with rock-faced arches. The pier capitals, arch spandrels, and imposts are ornamented by Byzantine foliage, Celtic intertwining bands, bunches of grapes, Norman zigzags, and expressive human heads. At the 4th floor paired round-arched windows are separated by squat Byzantine columns. Elaborately embellished imposts and corbels support the smooth limestone voussoirs which have simple molded enframements. At both Union Square corners of the building, very slender 3-story colonnettes rise from the base of the 2nd floor ending in flaring foliate capitals that support bulbous cartouches surrounded by foliate decoration.

A crisp cornice of dentils surmounts the 4th floor and articulates the transition to the simple brick and limestone 5th floor, with paired rectangular windows separated by piers with Byzantine curvilinear terminations. Surmounted by a protruding band of small square indentations, the 5th floor forms a transition between the double-height arcades of the lower section and those above. The design of the 6th & 7th floors echoes that of the 2nd & 3rd, however the upper floors are faced with brick and smooth limestone, and the architectural forms are lighter and more restrained. The 6th floor has corbels at the corners of the windows, and the 7th-floor windows are round-arched. A stylized variant of a dentiled cornice runs above the 7th floor. At the corner this cornice is accentuated by a flagpole base in the form of large and impressive griffin.

The paired round-arched windows of the 8th floor are faced with terra-cotta panels. Those of the upper half are cast in complex Byzantine guilloche and Celtic patterns. Above is a band of stylized triglyphs and metopes surmounted by a heavy projecting cornice consisting of moldings, a band of bosses, and a smooth band supported by a row of human and lion headed corbels. The 9th floor, a loggia with paired terra-cotta spiral columns separating the small rectangular windows, is shorter than the stories below. The attic is topped by an ovolo molding with recessed panels and incising.

The ground floor is occupied by Crossfuit Union Square, and Reebok Fithub Union Square.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1536.pdf