119 West 57th Street

 office building, arcade (architecture), commercial building

174-foot, 16-story Neo-Classical office building completed in 1927. Designed by Emery Roth, it spans through the block with frontages on both West 57th & 58th Streets. The south facade is clad in brown brick above a 4-story limestone base. The tall ground floor has grey granite cladding at the east bay, where the main entrance has glass-and-bronze double-doors. To the left are plate-glass storefronts topped by large sign boards. The 2nd & 3rd floors have narrow single-windows in the end bays, flanked by slightly-projecting stone pilasters with stylized Ionic capitals. The stone spandrels between the floors in the end bays have carved garlands of flowers, handing pendants, and rosettes, and slender carved totems flank the windows at the 3rd floor, with reclining winged female figures above them. The center section at the 2nd-3rd floors has bronze-framed tripartite windows with slender colonnettes separating the end panes, and a triangular bronze pediment with a cartouche topping the middle pane at the 2nd floor. The 4th floor has six evenly-spaced single-windows; the stone panels between them have carved urns. A dentiled cornice caps the base.

The brick midsection has three bays of paired windows, slightly recessed between the piers. At the 5th floor the middle bay has a stone surround, with ornate foliate and floral carvings at the ends. A modest stone cornice sets off the 13th floor, which has carved panels on each pier, and is topped by another cornice, marking a shallow setback highlighted by a central cartouche. There is a lower roof line above the 14th floor, with a small terrace. The south end of the building terminates at the 15th floor.

The north facade on 58th Street is also clad in brown brick, but above a 4-story base of beige brick with a grey granite water table. The end bays have matching entrances with glass double-doors and transoms set in stone enframements, topped by a cartouche, carved ribbons, and triglyphs at the ends, surmounted by a shallow, peaked cornice. Above, there are small, narrow openings with metal louvers at the 2nd floor, and narrow single-windows at the 3rd & 4th floors. The end bays are framed by slightly-projecting brick pilasters with stylized Corinthian capitals supporting a broad, dentiled, stone band course capping the base. The middle section has a plate-glass storefront at the ground floor, and large, bronze-framed tripartite windows at the 2nd & 3rd floors. The bronze spandrels in between these floors are each decorated with three rosettes, and narrow spiral colonnettes divide the windows on the 3rd floor; they are topped by a triangular bronze pediment with a cartouche overlaying the middle spandrel above the 3rd floor. The middle section of the 4th floor has two single-windows flanking paired windows in the center.

The shaft of the north facade has three bays of wide, paired windows, and is dotted with protruding air-conditioning units. A stone band course sets off the 11th floor, with another at the shallow setback above the 12th floor, highlighted by a cartouche at the center. There is another shallow setback above the 14th floor as well.

The north end of the west elevation is clad in brown brick, with two bays of single-windows, while the rest of the elevation farther south is beige brick, with more bays of single-windows. The ground floor is occupied by 57 Street Art & Antique Gallery.