ABC Carpet & Home (New York City, New York)

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6-story/9-story building completed in 1882. Designed by William Wheeler Smith as a 6-story retail store for Williams Sloane's carpet business, and an attached 9-story warehouse which was completed in 1898. The design is primarily Renaissance and Baroque with some Gothic details. It served as the flagship store of W. & J. Sloane until the 1980's.

The 6-story Broadway facade has a 1-story base, a midsection of two 2-story tiers separated by a minor cornice and terminated in a major cornice, and a 1-story attic. Five bays across, each bay is two windows wide except the middle bay which is three windows wide.

At the ground floor squat pilasters with stylized Ionic capitals are placed against broad piers which support a Doric entablature with triglyphs. The 1st, 2nd, and 4th bays contain display windows with cast-iron columns and bulkheads of decorative iron grilles. Columns are graceful, unfluted shafts with a flower and leaf design on the pedestals, palm fronds on the shafts, and elaborately voluted capitals. The central bay, wider than the others, is the principal entryway into the store. Divided by a fluted and banded granite column with an elaborate capital, the bay is an open, wood-paneled vestibule with ornamental iron lamps and original sliding security gates that can be hidden behind tall narrow doors. The southernmost bay, originally a storefront divided by a cast-iron column, has been completely modernized as the entry to an elevator and stair lobby.

Above the ground level is a two-tiered midsection articulated by 2-story pilasters. In the lower tier the pilasters have richly carved, multi-voluted capitals and, in the frieze of the entablature, decorative panels, one of which incorporates the year of construction (1881) in Roman numerals. From left to right, the capitals include an owl, a bird, a horn of plenty, a satyr, a bird, and a monster. Between the major pilasters, slightly recessed cast-iron window framing consists of small pilasters with decorative surfaces. The upper tier is similar, with the details of its decorative trim and surfaces different. Most notable are the carved figures in the pilaster capitals, from left to right, an angel, an eagle, a man, (unknown), a dog, and a young boy. The attic level is articulated by squat, simple pilasters. It is surmounted by a parapet wall broken by continuations of the vertical piers.

The East 19th Street facade has nine bays of varying widths across: the westernmost bay is three windows wide, the easternmost bay is five windows wide, and all the bays in between are two windows wide. On the first eight bays west of Broadway, the facade is similar to the Broadway facade.The 9-story, 9th bay, built later, is harmonious but somewhat different in design. In addition, the easternmost three bays are set apart from the rest by dark painted window framing.

At the base, the 1st and 4th bays east of Broadway (the latter having once been a public entrance to the building) are similar to the Broadway storefronts. The 2nd, 3rd, and 5th bays possess simplified pilasters with Doric capitals that enclose recently glassed-in display windows. Like the Broadway display windows, each of these possesses a single cast-iron column (except the first bay where there are two columns, each missing its capital).

The next two midsection tiers are different from Broadway only in some of their decorative details. In the lower tier most pilaster capitals are Doric with a floral band in each echinus. In the 1st and 4th bays, however, the capital is more nearly Ionic, each one with different plant motifs around the volutes. In the upper tier the capitals are Doric with three raised bosses in each echinus except at the 1st and 4th bays where there are angels, a lion,and a mask in the capitals. The cast-iron window framing in the 1st bay includes a decorated beam between the 2nd and 3rd stories with an "S" for Sloane flanked by putti. Similarly, the attic design and the parapet above it are the same as on Broadway.

The 9-story easternmost bay is similar to the original eight bays for its lower six floors as follows: its 1st story is a continuation ofthe two bays immediately to the west, each of the two midsection tiers is divided horizontally by a galvanized iron spandrel, the attic level is treated as a brick wall with windows between its framing pilasters,and then it rises another three stories. The additional three stories mare organized in two similarly treated tiers with windows framed by pilasters.

The East 18th Street facade is a simplified variation of the more important Broadway and East 19th Street facades. The dominant character is that of a straightforward commercial building with a clear articulation of its columns and beams and an infill of windows separated by thin brick piers. The brick facade is two bays wide each bay containing three windows. The outside piers rise unbroken, except for flush stone bands, from ground to roof; corbelled brick courses articulate the 2nd, 4th, 6th & 7th floors. Stone bands are placed at the levels of sills, lintels, and corbelled brick courses.

The Sloane Company was successful in the carpet and rug business, supplying the rugs during the coronation of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, as well as the White House and the Breakers which was the Vanderbilt mansion in Rhode Island. The Sloane company moved uptown in 1912, and the building was subdivided and leased to numerous tenants for both salesrooms and light manufacturing. After a long period of prosperity and prominence, the company went through a decline and was force to file for bankruptcy in 1985. In the 1940s and 1950s the building was known as the Schwartz Building, and was home to numerous dance studios. It now serves as condominiums, with the ground floor occupied by ABC Carpet & Home store, and ABC Kitchen restaurant.

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/12/w-j-sloane-build...
www.urbanarchive.org/sites/CkDbP9eL3H9
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.l0050435668