REAL   ESTATE







BUILDERS





AND







NEW YORK, MARCH 22, 1913





I  THE   LEWISOHN   BUILDING  I





A High Class Modern Loft Building—Details of Construction and Equip-                  |

ment—The New Home of The F. 'W. Dodge Company and Allied Interests.                  I

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AliHSINESS man sat liy his (Jesk
one day about a year ago in an in¬
conspicuous office in lower Fifth ave¬
nue. Before him lay a picture of the
New York Central's Gateway to the
West. He idly thrummed a pencil as
he dreamed of half a million people
who would pass through it every day.
He saw ten blocks away another mam¬
moth station that could hold 500,000
more, and then he pictured other mil¬
lions both above and beneath the busy
streets halting briefly in their tul)e trips
to and  from  their  surburban  homes.

He looked closely ?.t the new station
with its ramps and second-story street,
and noted that all of its vehicular traffic
would be discharged, not in 42nd street,
but into 40th street. He figured that
41st street was destined to be a sort of
back door or utility street to the new
crosstown artery, 42d street, and con¬
cluded that 40th street possessed em¬
bryonic dividends for the far-seeing in¬
vestor, provided he had resources suf¬
ficiently elastic to carry him over the
pioneering stage.

Not long afterwards the newspapers
told the story of the passing of Men¬
delssohn Hall, which had witnessed the
evolution of quaint old residential 40th
street into a heavy trafficked highway
connecting the trunk line railroads go¬
ing North and East with trunk lines to
the South and West. Mendelssohn Hall
itself had had a hand in the transition
of the street because twenty years be¬
fore it had encroached upon the quiet
of a residential thoroughfare that
boasted its proximity to, yet seclusion
from, the pulsating life of the geogra¬
phical center of the Greater City. As
Alfred Corning Clark had been a
pioneer in establishing the home for the
Mendelssohn Glee Club in a residential
center, so Philip Lewisohn must be
recorded as. having been one of the
pioneers in establishing commerce in a
thoroughfare which until recent years
promised to develop along institutional
lines, with banks, clubs and theatres.

When Mr. Lewisohn bought the
property from the Clark estate for
about $400,000 he announced that he
would put up a twelve-story bnilding.
The more he considered the future im¬
portance of 40th street the more he
realized that the plot was not sufficient¬
ly extensive to be improved in accord¬
ance with the commercial prospects in
the Grand Central Zone; so he reached
over to 41st street and acquired a 60-
foot plot running from No. 114 to 118.
This gave him a site of about 14,000
square feet, upon which he decided to
erect the present twenty-two story
structure, known as the "Lewisohn
Building."

It   is   owned   by   tlie   "West   Fortieth







1













Jlayuielie ii  Franke,  Architects.
THE   LEWISOHN   BUILDING.

An   Example   of   the   Most   Modern   Type   of
Commercial   Con.struction.





and Forty-first Street Realty Com¬
pany," of wliich Philip Lewisolin is
president. Record time was made in
the construction of the building, which
was erected from plans by Maynicke &
Franke. The building is not only the
largest mercantile structure north of
2^(\ street, but in other respects also it
is perhaps the most notable of the pro¬





ducts of the current building activity in
the mid-town section. It adjoins the
Tilden building on the west, and will
make quite a diflference in the landscape
view  from  Bryant   Park,

Construction.

Reflecting the trend to soften the out¬
line of modern business structures in
:irchitectural treatment, and at the
same time embodying the latest im¬
provements for the efficient conduct of
business, are the characteristics of the
Lewisohn   Building,

The Building is a high-class loft
structure with a frontage of 79 feet, 6
inches in 40th street and 60 feet in 4ist
street, with a depth of 195 feet, 5 inches.
The materials of construction are lime¬
stone, terra cotta and brick.

Appearance   Pleasing.

In consonance with a spirit whicli is
removing the old shaft and boxlike
business structures and dictating a
more attractive architectural treatment,
ihe new Lewisohn Building presents a
distinctive appearance, with its modern
Gothic facades. The style is a free
(iothic in treatment, studied with con¬
formity to details in character with the
material used. Terra cotta lends itself
to the rendering of Gothic details, fallen
into disuse on account of the prohibi¬
tive cost in stone. The modern intro¬
duction of terra cotta into general use
as a decorative material is hardly more
than a decade old. When the steel
frame came in, the use of terra cotta in
place of stone as the principal material
of the exterior, as well as of the in¬
terior, was imperatively indicated, not
only by the cheapness of the material in
the comparison, but by its superior
adaptability to the expression of the
construction. For the expression of a
frame, which must be wrapped to pro¬
tect it from the elements, it is clear that
great advantages are olifered by the use
of a material originally plastic, which
can be moulded so as to conform to the
structure which it at once conceals and
reveals.

Terra  Cotta  Adornment.

What may be taken as the base of the
building is emphasized by the introduc¬
tion of six symbolic figures, typifying
as many arts and industries, freely
rendered in the vein of the mediaeval
Gothic grotesque. Little touches of
ibis kind, lending character and individ-
u;ility, should be encouraged in our ar¬
chitecture, which tends to be too im¬
personal, stereotyped and purely utili¬
tarian. .\s a writer on the subject has
said, "One is inclined to feel kindly
towards the grotesque—it leavens the
severity of architecture and furnishes
that 'touch of nature' which is said to
'make   the  whole  world  kin.'    The  man