34-36 East 4th Street

 bar, pub / public house, apartment building

5-story German Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1889 as a pair of twin tenements with ground-floor commercial space. Designed by Alexander I. Finkle, the exuberant decoration and ornate pedimented cornice with eagle medallion provide a contrast to the more stately neighbors along the block.

Both of the twin facades are four bays wide. The ground floor has black cast-iron columns with a sheet metal lintel on top. The upper floors are clad in light tan brick; the projecting brick piers have stone bases, elaborately scrolled and foliate capitals, and foliate plaques. The 2nd-floor windows have brick and painted stone lintels with rock-face keystones and are flanked by paired three-quarter columns with composite capitals and foliate corbels. There are elaborate carved stone and checkerboard brick spandrels, and flat stone lintels on the 3rd-5th floors. The roof cornices are iron, and have pediment with central eagles, scrolled brackets, dentils, wreaths, and cartouches.

The building which continues in its original use was once home to the Work Shop for the Players Art (WPA) Theater c. 1970. The ground floor of No. 34 is occupied by Swift Hibernian Tavern - one of a quartet of Irish bars under the same ownership: Swift's Hibernian, Puck Fair, Ulysses and Harry's. The ground floor of No. 36 is occupied by Ogawa Cafe Japanese restaurant.