Closer And Closer

I’ve noted before that the random buildings I talk about often happen to be the ones directly in my path. Today, a random building across the street from our office:

It is now a three-story restaurant and bar. It’s an awkward site: the lot is roughly 93 feet by 16 feet, so any use is going to require some careful layout. The general form of the building gives a pretty good idea of what kind of steel frame is inside the masonry, which suggests 1920 or so as the earliest possible construction date, The use of terra cotta ornament in the facade makes 1950 or so the latest possible date.

In 1940, it had a cigar store on the first floor with some kind of office or showroom in the second and third:

In the maps up to and including 1923, there was a five-story building there that was probably not so different from the old loft buildings nearby. In 1930, the current three-story building was there:

In any case, the reason I originally took a photo was the terra cotta and brick ornament:

It’s amazing how much visual interest you can add to a facade that’s basically masonry frames around a bunch of rectangular windows with some small catalog-based terra cotta veneer, a handful of glazed brick, and some brick bond patterns.