25 East 21st Street

 condominium, 1904_construction, Renaissance Revival (architecture)

122-foot, 10-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1904. Designed by Jardine, Kent & Jardine as a store-and-loft/offices building, it is faced in rusticated limestone. The 4-bay facade is organized with a 3-story base, 6-story midsection, and a 1-story top.

The ground floor retains its original entranceways in the end bays with the surrounds embellished with raised circles. The recessed doors and transoms are replacements for the originals. The two center bays, originally containing a storefront, has been recently given a postmodern treatment. At the 2nd & 3rd floors the end bays are faced with rusticated limestone and rise to stylized Doric capitals. The center bays contain metal-framed tripartite window groups with transoms, rising above metal spandrel panels. There are vent openings above the end-bay windows on the 2nd & 3rd floors.

A projecting entablature sets off the midsection. Here the end bays also are faced with rusticated limestone through the 8th floor. The window treatment of the central bays is similar to that of the lower floors, except that the spandrel panels are embellished with swag motifs. An intricate foliate molding with center cartouche bearing the date "MCMIV sets off the brick-faced 9th floor. The 10th floor rises from a modillioned cornice carried on consoles. This floor has six arched window openings with keystones. A dentiled white roof cornice surmounts the facade.

The upper western elevation is an exposed brown brick wall which is pierced by square-headed windows and has traces of painted signage. Early tenants included publishers, a bibliophiles' society, cloak and suit merchants, a petticoat merchant, and a dressmaker. It was converted to condominiums around 2000.

The 4th floor is occupied by the Dedalus Foundation which was founded in 1981 by Robert Motherwell to advance the appreciation of modern art. For the past twenty years, the Dedalus Foundation has provided fellowships to outstanding graduate students specializing in modern and contemporary materials at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. The ground floor is occupied by Rambow Studio.

www.dedalusfoundation.org/