417 Lafayette Street

 restaurant, Neoclassical (architecture), apartment building, 1894_construction

8-story Neo-Classical residential/restaurant building completed in 1894. Designed by Cleverdon & Putzel as a warehouse, it has five bays of windows, grouped together between tan brick outer piers with orange terra-cotta banding. The piers have stylized terra-cotta capitals at the 2nd floor, supporting a Greek-fret molding. The cast-iron columns and beaded spandrel at the ground floor are painted black, with the cast-iron columns dividing the windows above painted white. Those on the upper floors have stylized caps and concave lintels with molded hoods. The 8th floor has round-arched windows, below a roof cornice with an elaborate frieze and egg-and-dart molding.

From 1898 until about 1985, it housed manufacturing lofts, and was then converted to residential apartments. The ground floor was occupied by Colors restaurant, which opened after 9/11/01. The significance of this restaurant is that the former employees of Windows on the World (which was located in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, 107F) who weren't in the towers during the 9/11 attacks opened this restaurant. Both the ground and 2nd floors are now occupied by Dolma Tibetan Rug Gallery.