Built for the Merchants & Manufacturers Exchange of New York, this office and showroom's facade exhibits figures of deities, beasts, and frames of lotus leaves.

The Fred F. French Building is referred to as New York's Mesopotamian skyscraper due to its obvious Near-East influence. Modern architects of the 1920s leaned on this aesthetic trope for its breadth and simplicity - a clear departure from gaudy historicism.

The interior of the skyscraper carries out the arabesque ornament of the outside with an eclectic blend of Near Eastern, Egyptian, ancient Greek, and proto-Art Deco influence.

The Shriners were an order of the Freemasons. The group was founded by a surgeon, Dr. Walter Millard, and an actor, William Jermyn Florence. Legend has it that Florence attended a party thrown by an Arab diplomat while performing in Marseilles. At this event, he witnessed the ceremony of a secret society who claimed lineage in the Order of the Mystic Shrine, founded at Mecca in 698 AD.

Whether or not the ceremony was authentic or simply an enactment to keep guests entertained is disputed. In either case, Florence's copious notes and sketches of the event formed the aesthetic base for the Shriners.

Like the Shiners, the Knights of Pythias is a secret fraternal brotherhood who leaned on Near-East aesthetics in their rituals and costumed ceremonies. Architect Tomas Lamb designed the group a building adorned with full-size Pharoah figures and sphynxes.

This former stable was more akin to a gallery than the antique store it was meant to be. A loft space above the shop was leased out to a woman who ran a cafe out of the second floor. In warmer months, she allowed patrons to dine among Grecian stone and Egyptian sarcophagi in the yard, pictured here.

The greatest totem of the "Egyptomania" that swept over New York is Cleopatra's Needle. This obelisk was moved from the shores of Alexandria to New York in 1880, around the same time as its twin was moved to London and a third obelisk was transported to Paris. The three were gifts to the so-called new empires which helped finance Egypt's construction of the Suez Canal.