Scribner Building, Commercial building in Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, United States.
The Scribner Building is a ten-story commercial building in the Beaux-Arts style on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, with a limestone facade marked by vertical piers carved with portrait busts. The two lower floors feature a glass-and-iron storefront trimmed with black and gold details that set it apart from the buildings around it.
Ernest Flagg designed the building for Charles Scribner's Sons between 1912 and 1913, and it was actually the second time Flagg worked for the same publisher on Fifth Avenue. The publishing house used the building as both its headquarters and a bookshop for several decades before eventually moving out.
The portrait busts carved into the facade represent publishers and printers who shaped American literary life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They are easy to spot from the sidewalk, making the building a kind of open-air tribute to the printed word.
The facade and storefront can be viewed from the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue at any time without needing to go inside. The ground floor now holds retail spaces, so visiting on a weekday morning tends to be more comfortable when foot traffic is lighter.
Ernest Flagg designed an earlier building for the same publisher, also on Fifth Avenue, which means there are two successive Scribner buildings by the same architect on the same street. The earlier one, from 1894, stands just a few blocks away and is also a protected landmark.
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