90 Fifth Avenue
90 Fifth Avenue is a Robert Maynicke design, and is one of his best buildings in the Ladies’ Mile District. Standing on Fifth at the corner of 14th Street, the district’s southern boundary and a major commercial cross-town thoroughfare, it is also one of his most commandingly sited structures.
Constructed in 1902, 90 Fifth Avenue perfectly exemplifies new developments in the architecture of the time towards a distinctly American type – the division of the structure into base, column and capital, following the example of Chicago architect Louis Sullivan; the use of lavish terracotta ornament and roman brick to cloak a steel frame; and the emphasis given large expanses of windows. The fully intact two-story cast-iron framed commercial frontages are particularly noteworthy.
Along with Wedgwood House, the New School’s University Center and 80 Fifth Avenue, 90 Fifth Avenue presides over a particularly dramatic major intersection of both American architecture and New York’s urban life.