243 East 18th Street (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / East 18th Street, 243
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6-story Renaissance-revival residential building completed in 1910. Designed by George F. Pelham as a stores-and-tenement building, it is clad in reddish-brown brick above a rusticated limestone ground floor (with metal-and-glass storefronts along the east end). The residential entrance is roughly centered on the south facade, with a wide, 3-step stoop and a glass door with very narrow sidelights and short transom set in a beveled surround with a bell-flower molding. Above is a cartouche with leafy fronds, and a pair of large, acanthus-leaf brackets support an extension of the band course running across the top of the ground floor. To the right is a single-window, and then a wide and a narrow storefront section separated by a brick wall. To the left are five single-windows, below which is a basement areaway behind a low brick wall topped by iron fencing. The banding of the rustication forms splayed lintels above each window.

The upper floors have 12 bays of windows, two of which is quite narrow, with the east end bay set farther apart and wider than the others. At the 2nd floor there is quoined stone banding framing each pier, linked by a horizontal band of connected circles across each pier. Scrolled keystones atop each window cross a stone band course above the 2nd floor. The 6th floor matches the 2nd, and those in between have stone quoins at the edges only, with bracketed sills and splayed stone lintels at the windows. The facade is crowned by a black metal roof cornice with brackets and dentils.

The east facade on the avenue has four bays of single-windows (of varying width) and the same ornament as on the south facade. There is also a rust-red fire escape running down the middle two bays. The west facade is clad in white-painted brick (unpainted at the top) with two bays of single-windows and another fire escape.

The building contains 24 apartment units. The ground floor at the east end is occupied by Manhattan Indian Flavor restaurant.
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Coordinates:   40°44'6"N   73°59'0"W
This article was last modified 6 months ago