574 Sixth Avenue Building

History and architecture

The building at 574 Sixth Avenue, erected by the Knickerbocker Jewelry Company in 1903-04 as the firm's retail store, was built in response to the resurgence of retail activity in the ladies' Mile area around the turn of the century. Designed by Simeon B. Eisendrath, who had worked previously in Chicago and Pittsburgh and was familiar with commercial architecture in those cities, the jewelry store was one of the architect's first commissions in New York City. The Knickerbocker Jewelry Company building, a small commercial palace, exhibits many features found in the design of larger commercial buildings of the period, including a transparent base and mezzanine level and upper stories displaying a cellular wall treatment which emphasizes the structure of the brick building.

Eisendrath topped these rationally designed facades with a crowning exuberant cornice, which, combined with the large windows on the sixth Avenue facade, seem to suggest a glittering jewel-box; the monumentality of the design is furthered by the structural treatment and special aesthetic qualities of the facades,enhancing the presence of the small comer building in the streetscape. The use of the flamboyant cornice and the concentration of ornament on the upper two stories of the jewelry store building were in response to the location of the sixth Avenue Elevated Railway in front of the building which obscured the lower stories from view; the crown of the building was intended to attract the attention of passengers on the El. The design of the inventive cornice and other sheet-metal ornamentation reflects a mannerist approach to the design of architectural elements in modern materials.