B. Altman & Co. Dry Goods Store Building (New York City, New York)

 store / shop, 1880_construction, 1876_construction, 1909_construction, 1887_construction, commercial building

4-, 5- & 6-story Neo-Grec department store complex completed in stages from 1876 to 1909. The first section was built at the southwest corner of 6th Avenue and West 19th Street, designed by D. & J. Jardine. The second was finished in 1880, facing West 19th Street, and also designed by D. & J. Jardine. The third section was completed in 1887, facing Sixth Avenue and 18th Street, and designed by William Hume. The final building of the main complex was completed in 1909, at the northwest corner of Sixth Avenue and West 18th Street, designed by Buchman & Fox. There is an additional 8-story factory and loft building at the western end, at 133 West 18th Street, that spans through the block and was completed in 1929.

The complex has a unified cast-iron facade on Sixth Avenue, a brick and brownstone facade on 18th Street, and a brick and cast-iron facade on 19th Street. Additionally, Altman's five-story Renaissance-Revival stable and powerhouse building at 135-143 West 18th Street is faced in limestone and granite. It was designed by Kimball & Thompson. The various buildings are clearly apparent along the West 18th and West 19th Street facades, because of the differences in their styles, although they are now interconnected within their three different tax lots. Differences are more subtle among the stylistically similar building sections at 615-629 Sixth Avenue, 101-111 West 18th Street, and 100-108 West 19th Street, built in four campaigns.

The nine bays which compose the Sixth Avenue facade are established at the 1st floor, where cast-iron pilasters with incised neo-Grec detailing on the shaft frame the show window openings, which are now filled with stucco panels and replacement windows; the pilasters at each side of the 3rd bay from the northeast corner are cast-iron in a rusticated design. A narrow cornice caps the 1st floor and supports small balustered balconies at the 3rd bay from each street corner. Above the 1st floor, the three bays in the two end sections, dating from 1876 and 1909, each contain three windows with two attached columns as mullions, creating an arcade. The three bays in the center section, dating from 1887, each have two windows creating an arcade with wider spanning arches, also with columns as mullions. The 3rd floor is similar to the 2nd floor, with the exception of the balconies. The 4th floor has square-headed windows with rounded corners that fit their openings. A modillioned galvanized-iron cornice supported on brackets resting upon the pilasters and over the mullions surmounts the first two sections in the northeast half of the building.

The 5th floor was erected on the 1909 section of Altman's in 1924 for Richard Hudnut by the architects G. & H. Boehm. This story maintains the windows and bay division seen at the lower stories, but it is unembellished. The cornice over the 4th floor was removed in this section for the addition; there is no cornice over the 5th floor.

On the West 18th Street side, the two bays of the 1909 addition are practically indistinguishable from the 1887 section; both are faced with painted brick and brownstone. The eastern end bay is of cast iron and continues the design of the Sixth Avenue facade. At the ground floor, the 1st bay from the corner is a continuation of the cast-iron facade on Sixth Avenue. The 2nd bay is filled in with brick and has a ventilation louver and an early entrance. The 3rd bay is brick-filled with three recessed panels. The 4th & 5th bays are similar cast-iron storefronts each with heavily altered show windows under transoms, framed by three cast-iron pilasters. The eastern pilaster is a typical incised neo-Grec design; the two western pilasters are rusticated and resemble those under the northern balcony on Sixth Avenue. The 6th bay has a tripartite division separated by cast-iron pilasters, with a door in the eastern opening, and the other two bricked-in. Rising from the dentiled cast-iron cornice that separates the 1st and 2nd floors are 2-story brick and brownstone pilasters, rusticated at the 2nd floor. Placed above the pilasters of the ground floor, these pilasters support a brownstone cornice over the 3rd floor. The 4th floor is similar to the lower two stories except that the mullions have neither bases or capitals, and the piers situated above the pilasters have traces of brackets or capitals, lost presumably when the 5th floor was added in 1924. A molding with a stylized floral decoration runs between the piers over the bays of the 4th floor. The 5th floor maintains the same tripartite window configuration.

The West 19th Street facade has a significantly different design from its counterpart at 101-111 West 18th Street. It is fifteen bays wide and is designed in a neo-Grec style. The northeast corner (nine bays) of the building dates from 1876, and the remainder (six bays) from 1880, but again, the facade has a common design. The 1st bay, from the Sixth Avenue corner, is a 2-window cast-iron continuation from the Sixth Avenue facade. The next five bays past the corner are filled in or hold service entrances in replacement materials, each capped by a cast-iron lintel with incised decoration. The 7th bay has a cast-iron door enframement with a replacement door under an intricate wrought-iron filled transom. The 8th bay has a cast-iron lintel. The break between the 1876 and the 1880 sections of the building is apparent as a slightly projecting pavilion at the 9th and 10th bays. Spanning the width of the pavilion, in the 9th and 10th bays, is a decorated cast-iron entrance with an attached column separating it from a similar space holding a window. The balance of the ground floor of this facade is filled in with brick and has four deeply recessed service entrances. A simple brownstone belt course separates the 1st and 2nd floors. The remainder of the bays above the ground floor contain single windows. The 2nd & 3rd floors have arched cast-iron window hoods with incised neo-Grec detailing; the 4th floor has similar, though square-headed, window hoods. The 3rd and 4th floors have bracketed cast-iron sills. The cornice is a continuation of the cornice over Sixth Avenue, and follows the contours of the building facade. A penthouse structure with a chimney is visible at the roof line.

The 8-story building at 133 West 18th, at the western end of the complex, was designed by George A. Boehm. It is faced in red terra-cotta tiles with gray tile spandrels. It has three bays of aluminum-framed windows arranged in a vertical tripartite configuration. The ground floor has a garage entrance in the western bay on 18th Street, and a window in the other two bays. Rising from a wide pink granite bandcourse are four piers which separate the slightly recessed bays. The facade on 19th Street resembles the 18th Street facade except, most notably, that it has only two fully expressed bays of windows, and narrow openings in the brick-faced astern bay, leading to open stairs. The ground floor has a deeply recessed unadorned entrance with a short flight of stairs in the eastern bay; the two western bays are garage door openings. Over the 8th floor are two shallow set-backs.

After B. Altman's moved uptown in 1906, construction continued on the property, and it was merged with the Siegel-Cooper store across 6th Avenue, becoming the largest department store in the world. Currently, the ground floors are occupied by Telegraphe Cafe, and The Container Store. Some of the space in the west end of the complex was remodeled as an event space in 1998 and named Metropolitan Pavilion. The upper floors are occupied by the headquarters of WeWork...for now.

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