99-101 Fifth Avenue
Designed by Mulliken & Moeller, 99-101 Fifth Avenue was erected in 1909 for the consortium of the 101 Fifth Avenue Company. Similar in design to 87 Fifth Avenue, which preceded it by 8 years, the building features a restrained façade where twin doors flank a central shop window original to the building.
Mulliken & Moeller are little-known today but produced a wide variety of luxury buildings in their heyday between 1902 and 1910, chiefly on the Upper West Side. Historian Christopher Gray notes that the firm’s trademark was “a vigorous contrast of flat brick and extensive, highly sculptured cream-colored terra cotta, often organized around a large central bay” and goes on to say that “Architecturally the designs were no more sophisticated than the usual speculative project, but Mulliken & Moeller so often repeated the same basic solution that their work has acquired a familiarity that gives it a stature beyond its actual accomplishment.”
Perhaps their best known work is the former Hotel Lucerne at Amsterdam Avenue and West 79th Street, an arresting display of plum-colored terra cotta and scarlet brick.