151 East 50th Street

 hotel, restaurant

9-story hotel/commercial building completed in 1930. It was originally intended as a small opera house, but the depression closed the curtain on that idea, until the late 1930s when it opened as cabaret "Versailles”. The house band was led by Desi Arnaz while celebs like Judy Garland and Ginger Rogers often visited. In 1958 Versailles shut down, and the building sat vacant until 29-year-old entrepreneur Morris Levy opened the jazz club, "The Round Table". After that closed, club "Tatou" opened in 1990. The upper floors have been converted into additional hotel rooms for the adjoining Kimberly Hotel, and the lower levels are is now occupied by Empire Steakhouse.

The 6-bay facade is clad in red brick above a ground floor of black cast-iron and stone. There are entrances at both ends, with glass double-doors, topped by rounded red canopies and scrolled keystones. The center bays are framed by thick, fluted piers, and have narrow windows framed in black metal; they are topped by red awnings and a small metal roof running across the center section. Black stone rectangular panels with projecting outlines sit beneath the four windows in the middle bays of the 2nd floor, and the end bays have ornamental iron grilles framed in stone below the windows. All six 2nd-floor windows are 4-over-2, with stone surrounds and triangular pediments. The end bays on each upper floors are very slightly recessed, and spaced out further from the middle bays.

The 2-over-1 windows of the upper floors have stone sills and splayed brick lintels with keystones. There is a narrow string course below the 7th-floor windows, where the end bays set back. The 8th floor has four shorter windows, surmounted by a wide triangular pediment with a stone cornice and stone medallion in the pediment. The building is topped by a recessed penthouse level.