The architect wanted the addition to appear as a set of individual forms that played off the mass of the existing brick building. The new loading dock building, with cloth storage on its upper floor, is clad in stripes of alternating plain and split-face concrete block in two shades of gray. The entrance and triple-height lobby are contained in a piano-curved volume, clad in stucco and punctuated by tiny glass block windows. The architect intended this curved side to be the “soft” public side of the addition. Its more industrial looking “hard” side, with its blue-glazed concrete “towers” (that denote the locations of the stairs and elevators) relates it to the loading dock building. The resulting assemblage of forms lends a good deal of style to the building’s less-than-friendly surroundings, while their tough materials are appropriate to the other industrial buildings in the neighborhood. The existing brick building looks particularly contextual, since its first and second-floor street-side windows have been sealed with welded steel grilles to foil burgers.

The interiors were done on a budget that could charitably be called slim; the marble floors in the lobby and showroom areas are the only concessions to luxury. But the architect’s resourcefulness in creating a lively play of form, texture, and color did not go unnoticed. Pilar Vilades, contributor to the New York Times and Architectural Record, wrote that the project was “a simple but memorable renovation” and admired it for the “clarity and boldness of the parts and the way in which they are interrelated.”