200 Fifth Avenue
A masterwork of the firm of Maynicke & Franke, 200 Fifth Avenue replaced the palatial Fifth Avenue Hotel, a legendary establishment that was one of the world’s first luxury hotels, boasting bathrooms in every suite and New York’s first hotel passenger elevator, Otis Tufts’ not-very-appealing-sounding “vertical screw railway”. The current building was much praised at… Continue reading
184 Fifth Avenue
A demure office building clad in delicate terra-cotta, 184 Fifth Avenue’s current 1911 design replaced a previous cast iron façade which in turn had replaced a facade of brownstone…neatly summing up a century of architectural trends on one site, give or take a few extra stories. The architect of 194 Fifth Avenue, John Corey Westervelt,… Continue reading
175 – 183 Fifth Avenue, The Flatiron Building
A whole book could be written about the Flatiron Building – and one has. For the purposes of this blog it is enough to say that this masterwork of the famed Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham was originally known as the Fuller Building after the construction company that commissioned it and took on its present… Continue reading
168 Fifth Avenue
A 1921 façade by Rudolph C.P. Boehler that unified two brownstones into a single address, 168 Fifth Avenue is a late example of the commercial conversions that transformed Lower Fifth into a shopping district. The large windows, yellow brick and highly restrained ornament suggest the coming Art Deco movement.
164 Fifth Avenue
A 1918 design by the great department store architects Starrett & van Vleck, 164 Fifth Avenue is an elegantly framed composition that suggests an abstracted triumphal arch. The fourth floor is a later addition. 164 Fifth Avenue was for a time tenanted by the Knights of Pythias, who moved here in the 1970s from their… Continue reading