NYC Facades

Quoins, hood molding

Capstone, ornament and molding

I am very fond of this type of architecture. The ornamented, rustified quoins (the horizontal bricks at corners, here around the windows) just really get me; the consistency of style between the window horizontals and verticals (on the right) and the scaling on the left that matches that on the right.

Decorative parapet

This building caught my eye well before I was looking carefully. It’s like a castle, don’t you think?

Upper stories with friezes

Detail - is the eagle on the right looking down?

Detail

This was hard to get a shot of, since it’s in the middle of the street. I used the GIMP to try to improve the view in the second to pictures (cropped from the first), however they just look a little funny.

This building is next to the famous Chelsea Hotel, which is so well-known I had no interest in looking at it. On the other hand, the Carteret (named after the English aristocratic family) looked like a palace, with sentries of eagles and knights, and large ornamental patterns. The air conditioners sticking out the window ruin the effect, of course.

I’m quite sure the central tower is actually disguising the water tower.

Upper detail

Lower detail

As many of the buildings on 23rd street near 7th avenue demonstrate, one need not go out of their way to find interesting buildings. (See also: Amsterdam Avenue).

Upper floors with exapnsion

Lower detail

One thing I enjoy about looking up is noticing how the architects decided to incorporate expansions. This building clearly added a floor, and made no effort beyond matching the red to fix it into the existing design. Nonetheless, it has some very subtle features to enjoy.

Upper stories

Molding detail

I like the subtelty of this building; the molding decorations done in brick, and the motif with the waves (in the cornice and in the bolding at the bottom of the second image). The whole thing is just unpresumptuous. I’m not sure of the style, though.

Highly ornate

This is one of many highly ornamented buildings in the southern part of the Upper West Side, particularly on Broadway.

Pitched roof, rounded windows

This building has some very interesting featurse. Of course, the pitched roof and dormer windows are quite unusual. I also find the shape of the arch on the top floor middle window to be quite unique; normally the arches I see are extremely vertical or rounded, but not so oblong.