Singer Building ca. 1905

Entering the lobby of this building in the summer of 1908, one would have been struck by its appearance, so different from the staid Classical interiors of the day. Here, for the first time, was a commercial building with a twentieth-century feeling- an almost plastic flow of lines; rich, warm-colored marble edged with crisp bronze profiles; columns flowing upward into pendentives which once supported glowing saucers of glass; and above all a great feeling of height and elegance. Ernest Flagg, the architect, was one of the few who, having caught the spirit of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, were able to apply its principles with freedom of expression.