King-Brinsmade Mercantile Company Building

A nine-story corner commercial block faced in white glazed terra cotta and brown brick, in a Renaissance Revival manner. The richly modeled two-story base carries foliate friezes, dentil and egg-and-dart cornices, and grotesque mascaron keystones over its windows; the speckled-granite entrance surround with metal "1709 BLDG" numerals is a later insertion. Above, brown-brick piers frame window bays with ornamented terra-cotta spandrels, rising to an elaborate bracketed cornice with palmette cresting. The long west flank is plain red brick, carrying faded painted advertisements — among them "King Bee Hats — King-Brinsmade Merc. Co." and a period chewing-gum sign.

Constructed in 1907 for the King-Brinsmade Mercantile Company — a wholesale firm whose "King Bee" hats survive in a painted advertisement on the west wall — the building stood among the loft-and-showroom houses of the Washington Avenue garment district. The Superior Typesetting Company occupied the eighth and ninth floors into the 1970s. Artists took lofts in the building during the 1980s; it was converted to residential use at the end of the 1990s, and a 2003 renovation produced condominiums. A 2007 project brought a technology company onto the ground floor and reopened storefront windows that had been filled in. The building is now known as the King Bee Lofts.