411 Fifth Avenue

 office building, 1915_construction

133-foot, 12-story Spanish-Baroque office building completed in 1915. Designed by Warren & Wetmore, its upper floors are faced in rough stucco and adorned with myriad baroque terra-cotta decorations. The west facade on the avenue has three bays (each with four windows), and the south facade on 37th Street has, from west to east, a bay of four windows, a single-window bay, five bays of tripartite windows, and another single-window bay. The lobby was renovated in 1959, eliminating its original design, and in 2000 a modernist front was added to the ground floor, and the original windows above replaced. The new ground floor includes a segmental-arched entrance in metal and glass at the north end on the avenue (surrounded by white marble panels in a grid of black metal) and metal, glass & stone storefronts. At the east end of the south facade, the original service entrance remains, with recessed metal doors framed by a gold rope molding. At the 2nd floor, the new windows are framed in black metal, with narrow, green-tinted, translucent panes at the tops and bottoms. The 2nd floor is capped by a molded cornice.

The 3rd floor has ornate terra-cotta carvings at the piers; the 4-window bays (three on the avenue, and one at the west end of 37th Street) have the end panes separated by spiral columns with grinning faces at the capitals. The rest of the cornice above the 3rd floor is adorned with other faces, either gaping or stern. Decoration on the piers includes warriors, maidens and academics, along with caryatids, portraits, medallions, baskets, garlands and more. The figure farthest east down 37th Street, though, is different. Unlike the others in ancient dress, this one dons a necktie and fedora—possibly a self-portrait of one of the architects.

The upper floors, faced in rough-finished stucco, have stone surrounds around the windows, each also decorated with carved patterns. There are also urns overflowing with fruit above the carved panels of the 3rd-floor piers. At the top floor the piers have carved ornament, as well as the spandrels below, and the frieze along the roof line. This area is especially elaborate, with garlands, medallions, ribbons and baskets below the undulating roof line, which incorporates baby faces, and is topped by sprouting finials at the piers. At the tip of the southwest corner an immense work in terra cotta resembles the figurehead of a sailing ship.

When completed, the building was quickly occupied by apparel firms. As the United States joined the war in Europe the American Red Cross took space here in 1917. On street level the retail store was home to the Columbia Gramaphone’s “Grafonola Store.” Here shoppers wandered among hand-cranked phonographs in cabinets ranging from “English Chippendale” to Chinese lacquered models. In 1921 Max Fertig’s linens and laces store took over the former Columbia store, signing a 21-year lease. A few years later the building would again be the scene of history making. For years the General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company had done research on the possibility of transmitting live images. By 1928 the futuristic idea was close to becoming reality. That year The Radio Corporation of America, later known as RCA, began construction of a transmission studio in No. 411. The R.C.A. Photophone, Inc. already had a recording studio here and the new equipment room was adjacent to it. Decades before the television set would be commonplace in America’s living rooms pictures were appearing on a screen at No. 411.

The ground floor is now occupied by a Citibank branch. It is possible that the Robinson & Golluber store operated on this site.

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