New York City Structures, Scribner’s Sons Building

Charles Scribner’s Sons Building
597 Fifth Avenue
Architect: Ernest Flagg
Year built: 1912-1913

NEW YORK—The storefront of the Scribner’s Sons building on Fifth Avenue near 48th Street is lavishly decorated in a French Beaux-Arts feast of gold trimmed black Corinthian columns, intricate iron scrollwork, and two chubby cherubs supporting a sign still bearing the name “Charles Scribner’s Sons” neatly emblazoned in gold letters on a black background. The storefront was originally designed as the flagship bookstore for Scribner’s Sons publishing.

The street level retail store, now occupied by cosmetics company Sephora, has two stories of windows at the west end of the building that allow natural light to filter into the space. The many windows, artfully divided into circles, arches, and large plate glass rectangles, have been divided into different configurations by black iron mullions, creating an elegant framework in the evenings when the interior glows with warm amber lighting.

The landmarked interior retains its original design and is very well preserved. It is light and airy throughout. A wall of mirrors at the rear of the store enhances the light entering the windows at the front of the store. A delicate iron handrail runs along both sides of the mezzanine level. A lively spiral staircase coils up to the mezzanine level at the midpoint of the store. The vaulted ceiling is decorated with small owls in relief medallions, perhaps in deference to the wisdom imparted by Scribner’s many publications.

New York has long been the center of the U.S. publishing universe and Charles Scribner founded his publishing firm in New York in 1846 with partner Issac Baker. The publishing house distinguished itself as the house of American fiction in the 20th century by publishing the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, and Thomas Wolfe. McMillan acquired Scribner’s Sons Publishing in 1984 and the building was sold.

Ernest Flagg, whose sister Louise later married Charles Scribner Jr., designed the building. Brooklyn-born Flagg studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, his studies sponsored by his cousin Cornelius Vanderbilt, in the late 1800s. He became a Beaux-Arts champion when he returned to the United States, later becoming president of the New York Society of Beaux-Arts Architects. Flagg also designed Scribner’s corporate headquarters at 153-157 Fifth Ave., at 21st Street, completed in 1893.

The New York Post reported in June that Thor Equities is currently in contract to purchase the Scribner building for $108.5 million. The building last changed hands in 2006 when A. & A. Acquisitions bought the building for $79.1 million.