Porcelanosa Building

202 5th Avenue | also 1122 Broadway, 204 5th Avenue | NoMad | built 1930

Open on the map7 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1874

    The New-York Club occupies a brownstone on this corner overlooking Madison Square

    An earlier four-story brick and brownstone house stood at 1 West 25th Street, on the site now covered by 202 Fifth Avenue. The New-York Club, founded in 1845, leased it from 1874 to 1888, looking out over the Worth Monument and Madison Square. It was one of several men's clubs housed in existing buildings around the square, and the house was later replaced by the 1918-19 office building.

    Source: architecturaltrust.org

  2. 1914

    Next door, C. P. H. Gilbert builds a neo-classical bank at 204 Fifth Avenue

    The neighboring building at 204 Fifth Avenue, listed with this one in city records, was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert and finished in 1914 for the Lincoln Trust Company. Only 28 feet wide, it ran through the pie-shaped block to Broadway, with a rusticated base, a two-story arched entrance and a banking room 26 feet high. Lincoln Trust merged into Mechanics and Metals National Bank after stockholders approved the deal in 1922, and Chase National Bank had taken over the site by the late 1920s.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1919

    Buchman & Kahn design 202 Fifth Avenue as Ely Jacques Kahn's first commission

    The six-story neo-classical office building was built in 1918 and 1919 by Buchman & Kahn with the Chicago firm Zimmerman, Saxe & Zimmerman, for the Thomas Cusack Company as tenant. The owner was the Stephenson family. It was the earliest commission of Ely Jacques Kahn, and it has three fully developed facades, with terra-cotta facing, on Fifth Avenue, Broadway and West 25th Street.

    Source: architecturaltrust.org

  4. 1919

    The Cusack Company turns the building's south wall into a lit billboard

    The south face of the new building was highly visible, and its tenant, the Thomas Cusack Company, treated it as an advertisement. The firm's name and services covered the wall between the windows, a sign stood on the roof, and the whole front was brightly lit after dark. The district's landmark report notes that the face was used this way from the start.

    Source: architecturaltrust.org

  5. 1988

    Serge Becker and Eric Goode open a nightclub and restaurant in the old bank at 204 Fifth Avenue

    In 1988 designer Serge Becker and artist Eric Goode leased the former bank next door at 204 Fifth Avenue and turned it into a combined nightclub and restaurant. It had a living room and bar downstairs, a dining room above, and a billiard room and bedroom at the top, plus a members-only club in the basement. The design studio Pentagram leased the building in 1994.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1991

    A granite storefront and a marquee replace the building's original ground floor

    In 1991 owner Abraham Damast had architect Alvin Hausman install a new granite first-story facade on all three sides of the building, with a marquee facing West 25th Street. New window sash went in throughout the next year. Even so, the upper parts of all three facades remain largely intact, including the historic terra-cotta crown molding and the projecting cornice.

    Source: architecturaltrust.org

  7. 2015

    September 9

    Porcelanosa opens its Manhattan flagship in 202 Fifth Avenue

    The Spanish tile and ceramics company bought the building in 2012 and opened its flagship on September 9, 2015, after a renovation by Foster + Partners. The firm restored the protected facade and rebuilt the interior as open, flexible floors. In 2018 it acquired the adjoining building and moved its administrative offices there, which let the exhibition area at 202 expand and turned the fifth floor into a complete New York-style apartment.

    Source: porcelanosa.com

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