Photo Credit: Roving Rube. Viewpoint: 5th Ave. at 55th St., looking east; 3/24/02 10:49 AM.

Notes (Roving Rube): Of course the Rube had to look it up again to remember the word, but in classical architecture, when you see a thing with two spiral thingees on the ends, that's called a "volute". These ones on the side of the St. Regis hotel on Fifth Avenue are the champions of New York in the Rube's book.

Detail shows the array of them on the 55th Street side.

It was built in 1904 by John Jacob Astor, who the Rube is finding out was quite important in the history of hotels, and designed to be "good enough to house the overflow of Astor's own guests [emphasis Rube's] ... named for the French monk who had been canonized for his hospitality to travelers."

"The elegant limestone facade imitates a classical column [In Context], with the shaft of the building rising from a rusticated base and and ending in a richly decorated capital. [Alternate View] ... There were a reported forty-seven Steinway pianos available for the use of the guests; the library, with its English oak paneling and three thousand leather-bound, gold-embossed volumes, was attended by a librarian who assisted guests with their selections. Even the engine and boiler rooms, sixty feet below Fifth Avenue, were lined in marble."

{from The Landmarks of New York II, by Barbaralee Diamonstein).