E. 42nd Street: A Superabundance of Good Architecture
If you’re like me, then East 42nd Street in NYC holds one architectural delight after another. You’ll find particularly fine examples of several different styles, from the Beaux Arts Grand Central Terminal to the Queen-of-Art-Deco Chrysler Building to the eye-pleasing Late Modernism of the Ford Foundation Building to the neo-Gothic Tudor City. So over the next several days, I’ll feature photos of some of the architectural gems of E. 42nd.
Today’s photo is a detail from the Park Avenue side of the Pershing Square Building. I must admit that I’m cheating a little bit, as the “front” of the U-shaped, 24-story office building is on Park Avenue, but there is also a significant facade on the E. 42nd Street side, taking up the addresses 100-108, from the corner eastward along that street.
The building, erected in 1923, was designed in a Romanesque Revival style, featuring two-story windows, topped by semi-circular arches, along its base. Similar large, arched windows form a crown around the top of the structure.
The bulk of the facade is finished in a pleasingly-textured design of cross-set brick in shades of buff and brown. The large windows are framed with pilasters topped by arches, all decorated with terra cotta ornamentation so elegantly designed that it almost looks woven.
