37 West 47th. Street

 office building, commercial building

175-foot, 17-story Renaissance-revival office building completed in 1926. Designed by Walter M. Mason, it is clad in brown brick and limestone. The 2-story base is faced in white-painted limestone, with recessed entrances in both end bays. The main entrance is at the east, with three glass doors under a bronze number 37. The west bay has a service entrance; both have narrow, angled sides back to the recessed doors, and are topped by carved round-arches of ornamental patterns. Three small pendants accent the space above and around the arches. There is a large, black metal and glass storefront between the entrances, with three bays of display windows on either side of a central storefront entrance with glass double-doors, also slightly recessed. An Art-Deco styles canopy of metal and glass, topped by a brass railing, covers the middle of the storefront area. Above the canopy there is a vent in the center of seven black metal panels; the entire storefront is lined by a black granite border.

The 2nd floor has a tripartite window in the center flanked by double-windows, and also double-windows in the end bays, all with simple stone surrounds. Above each window is an ornamental carved frieze with a projecting sill; fluted keystones separate the middle friezes and roundels frame those at the end bays. A dentiled cornice caps the base.

At the upper floors the middle section consists of a bay of triple-windows and two bays of double-windows, framed by brown brick piers from the 3rd-6th floors. The windows in each bay are divided by grey metal mullions, and there are stone spandrels between floors; a small cornice caps this section. The end bays are faced in limestone blocks, with double-windows. At the 7th floor the end bays have projecting, full surrounds framing triple-windows (narrower panes than the double-windows below). The middle bays have projecting sills, with triple-windows flanking the center bay's four windows, also smaller than those below.

The end bays set back above the 7th floor, with finials at the corners, and curved buttresses where the ends of the middle bays narrow to single-windows. The center bay at the 8th floor has a wide triple-window, with a projecting stone balcony. The set-back end bays are clad in brown brick from the 8th floor up, with double-windows. They have another setback above the 8th floor, with a cutout area between the piers filled by a metal lattice screen. Additional setbacks occur above the 11th, 12th, 15th & 16th floors at the end bays.

The middle section remains clad in limestone, setting back above the 8th floor, except for the center bay that extends vertically for two more floors to a peaked pediment at the 10th floor with finials at the corners and a large urn topping the pediment; there are single-windows in the side walls of the projecting center bay. The set-back bays to either side have single-windows, squared at the 11th floor. The center bay widens at the 12th floor to accommodate narrow single-windows flanking the triple-window, with the stone bays on either side reduced to angled, narrow walls with single-windows (angling back to join the brick-clad end bays; these all set back above the 12th floor). The middle bay extends to the 13th floor with another triple-window but dropping the flanking single-windows, and narrows slightly at the 14th floor, where its triple-window has rounded corners. There are carved spandrel panels in the projecting middle section between the 12th-14th floors, and the projecting middle section is capped by the 14th floor by another peaked pediment with end finials. Behind this pediment, the middle section of the 15th floor is recessed behind the end bays, and marks the end of the limestone cladding, with the top floors fully clad in brick. The middle bays of the 15th & 16th floors have triple-windows flanked by single-windows.

At the 17th floor the end bays have stone round arches above the double-windows, and the middle bay narrows to a double-window flanked by two small single-windows. There is a stone panel above the double-window, surmounted by a steep angled triangular pediment that rises into the sloped red tile roof that fronts the main roof, and which is framed by brick towers at the end. A stone-faced mechanical penthouse with a single-window and a green tile roof parapet rises from the center of the main roof.

The brick-clad rear, north-facing facade has eight shallow setbacks, with mostly single-windows on each floor. It has two single-windows in the north wall of the mechanical penthouse. The east and west elevations are clad in tan brick and have two bays of double-windows at the front (ending at the setbacks), and a few small windows toward the rear at the lower floors.