146 East 49th Street

 apartment building  Add category

10-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1920. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, it is clad in white brick above a 2-story rusticated limestone base. There are four bays, with the entrance in the 2nd bay form the west, with paneled glass double-doors set in an elaborately carved foliate molding topped by a small cornice. Wall lanterns frame the top of the entrance, and a rounded, black canvas canopy extends out over the sidewalk. At the ground floor the west bay has narrower glass double-doors entering to a small storefront. The west bay is split between a metal service door and a show-window, and the next bay has glass double-doors for another storefront.

At each of the upper floors, the end bays have double-windows, and the middle bays have tripartite windows with black iron mullions. A stone cornice caps the base, with low iron railings across the bases of the windows above. The 3rd-floor windows have stone surrounds, lined with thin egg-and-dart and fret moldings, and topped by small cartouches. The other floors have brick lintels and projecting stone sills.

A stone band course sets off the 9th floor, with projecting, slightly-rounded stone balconies at the end bays. The 9th-floor windows also have stone surrounds, with ornamental curving segments flanking the edges on spilling onto the piers. The main roof line is topped by a dentil course above a frieze of metopes. The recessed penthouse level is not visible from the street.

The building contains 38 apartments and only 4 units per floor. The ground floor is occupied by The Midtown Shave barber shop, and Manhattan Espresso Cafe.