A view of 99 Prince Street:
It’s a little hard to believe it today, but this was built simply an ordinary commercial building with retail and office space. It was completed in 1888 by architect William Schickel working for “J. J. Astor.” That was either John Jacob Astor III near the end of his life, or John Jacob Astor IV very early in his career. The Astor real estate empire was not run by penny-pinching, and a reasonable quality of both design and construction can be assumed in an Astor development. The late 1880s, before the huge upswing in classical architecture triggered by the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago, was a good time for romanesque architecture like this; the rapid growth of the terra-cotta industry at that time provided the ornament.
But…who cares? Look at that facade!
Those are real brick arches at the sixth floor, even if they’re not supporting very much load. The veneer brick is the standard red you expect with our local clay, but higher quality than common brick. I really like that color against that sky. And note the relatively small size of the all-masonry cornice, compared to the huge overhangs popular a few years later, when cornices began to be steel-framed.
Sometimes, it’s enough to just be pretty.
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