175 West Broadway Building

History and architecture

Erected in 1877 for the heirs of the Estate of Jerome B. King to the designs of the Newark architectural firm of Scott & Umbach, the 175 West Broadway Building is an exceptional example of late-nineteenth-century polychromatic brick design. Exemplifying changes in taste during the 1870s which favored brick buildings, its facade presents a striking blend of European-inspired brick design. Among the notable features of the facade are the contrasting stonework which highlights areas of structural stress and creates patterned effects, the unusual corbelled archivolts employing multiple dentil courses, and the extraordinary stepped and bracketed corbelled brick cornice that is without parallel in New York architecture.

This small office building was constructed at a time when improved transportation facilities spurred the erection of such new commercial buildings in the area around lower West Broadway. Built as a rental property for the heirs of Jerome B. King, one of the most prominent manufacturers of plaster and cement products in the country, the building was long occupied by Harwood & Son, a successful manufacturer and retailer of awnings and other canvas products.

Built as a small four-story office building, 175 West Broadway is similar to many of the store and loft buildings in the TribeCa area in the division of its facade into a cast-iron and brick commercial base and brick upper stories. Here, however, the first story is elevated a few feet above ground level.

In the absence of original plans it is only possible to speculate on this unusual arrangement, though it seems likely that the building's small size made an above-ground basement desirable. In addition, since 175 West Broadway was an office building, the wood and glass shopfront was probably not used for the display of goods but only for signage and illumination. The articulation of the upper stories is unusually rich, employing both elaborate corbelling and brick and stone polychromy in an exceptional design which draws on both German and French sources.