At 22nd and 6th Avenue in Chelsea, northwest corner, is the former Ehrich Brothers Emporium, constructed in 1889, and currently home to a Burlington Coat Factory on the ground floor. But there’s a secret about this building that most passersby fail to notice. The exterior of the building is festooned with letter K’s, both on the beautifully colored terra cotta paneling, and also on the wrought iron decorations shown here.
As is well known, “Ehrich” doesn’t begin with K, so why all the K’s? This dates to the era when the building was owned by Chicago merchants J.L. Kesner Company, who hired architects Taylor and Levi to add all the letter K’s, which remind me both of the subway signage being designed by Heins and LaFarge at the time and also looking forward to the Machine Age mosaic lettering that came about in the late 1920s.
Of course the building also has EB initials, on the pilasters near the roofline.
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12/13/22