Manhattan Savings Bank Building

 office building, commercial building

222-foot, 20-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1916. Designed by Warren & Wetmore, it is clad in buff-colored brick above a 6-story limestone base. Both the north and east facades have five bays, with the main entrance in the south bay on Vanderbilt Avenue. It has a brass-framed double-door, covered by a brass canopy and topped by brass-framed window panes. Above is a panel with carved griffins and foliate ornament flanking a small cartouche with the address "52" in brass numbers. A pair of scaled console brackets at the ends and six shorter brackets above the panel support a small, dentiled stone cornice. The other bays on the east facade have storefronts recessed above a black granite water table that serves as a series of planter boxes. The north facade has a matching black granite water table with plantings on top, growing taller toward the west due to the slope of the site. The three eastern bays have large plate-glass storefronts recessed behind the plantings; the 4th bay has a plate-glass show-window at its east half and a metal-doored service entrance in the west half. The westernmost bay has a secondary entrance, framed in black cast-iron and topped by a black iron panel, all framed in stone, with a similar carved panel and cornice above the doorway (but lacking the brass address numbers). The upper floors of the base have paired windows in the middle bays; the end bays have single-windows with stone surrounds at the 2nd floor, and small double-windows at the floors above. In the middle bays there are pairs of white terra-cotta spandrels with cross-hatch patterns outlines by egg-and-dart moldings. A modest cornice sets off the transitional 6th floor, which is clad in white terra-cotta. It has decorative panels between the bays with carved urns and foliate ornament. A projecting cornice caps the base.

The upper floors have paired windows in the middle bays and narrow double-windows in the end bays, except for at the 7th floor, where the middle bays have tripartite windows in terra-cotta surrounds, ornamented at the top by rosettes and other carvings, and small cornices above the center windows. At the 18th floor, the three middle bays on both facades are spanned by a projecting stone balcony carried on paired brackets and topped by a metal railing. The 18th-20th floors have triple-height round-arches in the middle bays, with tripartite windows divided by metal mullions and spandrels. The arches are topped by scrolled keystones, and the entire top floor is faced in white stone, with bas-relief angles between each bay. Both main facades are crowned by a dentiled and modillioned roof cornice.

The west elevation is faced in beige brick and smooth stucco. It has a bay of paired windows flanked by a bay of single-windows on each side, without any of the detail on the two main facades. The ground floor is occupied by Ammos Estiatorio restaurant.