17 West 45th Street

 office building  Add category

111-foot, 10-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1911. Designed by H. Craig Severance, it is clad in limestone and brown cast-iron above a ground floor of dark-grey-green granite tiles. There is a slightly recessed central entrance, with storefronts on either side; the eastern storefront has a large, red, rounded canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk.

The upper floors are framed in stone, with the middle sections consisting of two halves divided vertically by a fluted, brown cast-iron column broken by decorative ornament between each floor. Each half has a double-window flanked by smaller windows in brown iron framing, with brown iron spandrels with patterns that alternate every other floor: either wave motifs or a foliate pattern, both topped by dentils.

The top two floors have two bays of paired windows, both framed by 2-story, fluted Doric columns.Stone paneling fills the space in between and the narrow end spaces. The facade is crowned by a white, modillioned roof cornice. The exposed upper portion of the west elevation is clad in brick, with beige smooth stucco at the front. The front part has a bay of double-windows and a bay of single-windows. Farther back there are three bays of paired windows. The exposed front edge of the east elevation is plain concrete up to the 6th floor, where it is faced in beige stucco and has a bay of double-windows and a bay of single-windows. The ground floor is occupied by Antalia restaurant.