The Paul Brown Building

A sixteen-story office building of dark brown brick over a two-story base of cream terra cotta and marble, built in a U-plan around a light court so its ranks of paired windows face three streets. The terra-cotta base is richly modeled — arcaded corbel tables, medallion friezes of confronted eagles and rosettes, and round-arched entrances wrapped in interlace and figural voussoirs — carried up to a matching terra-cotta crown of blind arcading and a pinnacled parapet. The mass steps down from sixteen stories on the southern half to a lower northern wing. Behind the arched Olive Street entrance, an L-shaped lobby runs as a barrel vault of gilded, coffered plaster.

The building was completed in 1926 to the design of Preston J. Bradshaw and named for Paul Brown, whose brokerage firm, Paul Brown & Co., is lettered over one of the storefronts. It was raised in two heights: the southern half rose the full sixteen stories, while the northern half was built lower after the tenants of an adjoining building refused to give up their leases. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and later converted to apartments as the Paul Brown Loft Apartments. It was offered at a foreclosure sale in 2024.