Past Life
Once again, I noticed something for the first time after years of wandering past it. I was taking a bus down Fifth Avenue Wednesday and for the first time noticed a "K" on a cartouche on the Beaux-Arts building on the corner of 32nd Street and Fifth Avenue, seen in the 2007 photo here and not looking that much different today. (I usually walk down that stretch of Fifth Avenue.) I love this building and wish it were much better maintained but at least it hasn't been torn down.
Anyway, seeing the K inspired me to Google it and see what I could come up with. I'm glad that one of my leads was this site, which gives a ton of information about buildings all along Fifth Avenue, but the most informative site about this particular building was this page. This is the Kaskel & Kaskel Building, which once had a much more luxurious tenant and appearance, making me all the sadder about its current condition. You can see two old photos from the early 1900's of what it used to look like, one of which also shows the imposing Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the current site of the Empire State Building.