NYC Facades

26th street from Madison Square

Upper story detail

11 East detail

These are a great example of buildings with more to offer well above street level; the ground floors are devoted to storefronts with little detail. However the left one, #9, has lovely pillar decorations and a mansard with quatrefoil and peaked window caps.

The right building is suggestive of a factory, with its large window framing on the top three floors; however, I doubt it was a factory, given its location and size. I also included the statues midway up, which are called Atlas’s (as in, Atlas is holding up the building).

Picture frame

Grand decorations

The horizontal surrounding the leaves on the middle floor on the bottom picture look like they are shaded in a comic book. Note the great ornaments in the center and corbels on the sides.

Wroght iron terrace; look at the inset decoration

Terrace detail

I think the baluster is flowers flexing their muscles to hold up the railing; I imagine it as something straight out of a Disney movie. I also like the inset brick columns on the first picture, to the right.

Pink!

Pink and green!

This building is just too much; I don’t know what to say that despite its funny color scheme it has some interesting details. I am putting it down as “classical”, which I feel is given away by columns and the horizontal blocking (which is usually done on the bottom floor).

Often the best thing to see is at the top of the building. Note the unfinished side

Upper floor detail

This matches the entrance on the east end of 40 W 23

Gothic pillars

Detailed rods hidden in the column ridges

This building is a wonderful complement to 40 West 23rd, and also happens to be occupied by The Home Depot.

Was the building expanded on one side only? (Note: the curving facade is an artifact of the panorama stitching)

I like how The Home Depot fits with the building style. Look at the seal! The "S" is for "Stern" -- see below.

Some buildings I see details I like a lot, and some I am blown away by. This was the latter. It just had such great detail and scale. The facade was finished the entire height, and it even had a mystery: why is there a modern extension on the eastern side that does not match that on the western? Was there a patio there? Was it destroyed in an accident and rebuilt in a time without style?

EDIT: New York Architecture has a page about this building (with a slightly different address?). As the author says on that site about the extension,

W.M. Schickel’s typically 19th century addition tripled the dimensions of the original structure on the eastern portion of the site. The tall central section of this addition animates the long and delicately detailed facade. The company’s monogram is located above a central arch.

I do think Home Depot does a great job here with respecting the building (although they could have done with less orange). See also 28 West 23rd.

Of Columbus Circle fame

I was just taking a picture of the statue of Christopher Columbus, who seemed very out of place among the skyscrapers hundreds of feet to either side. That didn’t really pan out, but I did find it interesting having Columbus posing above the hurried man crossing the street.

It just so happens that there is another Christopher Columbus Statue in Riverdale, constructed by Robert Moses when he built the Henry Hudson Parkway. (Clearly, I don’t know the whole story.) I rode my bike up there, but didn’t get a chance to photograph the gent; perhaps another trip will take me there.

Front view

Window detail

Although I wasn’t on a photo mission (it was a biking mission), I found this building quite interesting. The crucifix motif around each window is quite unusual, and almost certainly references the Church of the Good Shepherd one block away.

Small railroad building visible from Spuyten Duyvil train station

I can’t claim to know anything about this little building. It is plainly visible from both the Henry Hudson Bridge and the Spuyten Duyvil train station, so I would guess tens of thousands of people are exposed to it daily. However, a quick search on the web didn’t turn anything up (I didn’t know what terms to use, though). I would love to see it close up, but I am not one to jump fences and risk life and limb on the train tracks (not to mention prison for trespassing) for this.

Do you know anything about it, dear reader?