Setting the Stage At the Front Door

To proclaim power and prestige, some architects add marquees to buildings. Like canopies, marquees signal building entrances, but they are less prone to grime and the slings and arrows of Manhattan's strong winds. They are also more permanent and expensive.

Marquees come in different shapes and sizes, and are important sculptural elements of building architecture.

At 55 Central Park South, the large marquee is a bold depiction of the peaked and fluted verticality of the Art Deco building, which was designed by Schwartz and Gross in 1930. A fitting centerpiece for the soaring aesthetic, it abjures the typical horizontal form, and celebrates and reinforces the building's design motif.

Not far away, the Coronado at 151 W. 70th St. has a large, curved marquee topped with two great, but not terribly fierce, dragons, a rare modern excursion into the macabre world of gargoyles and gremlins.

While the marquee at 55 Central Park South is a strong aesthetic statement, the Coronado's is pure whimsy. The dragons' highly visible perch makes Broadway boulevardiers often do double takes.

Humor is extremely difficult to portray in architecture, but Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron, the architects of the Coronado, manage to bring it off quite well, even if the sculptures would never win a stonemason award. The condominium building was developed by Sherwood Equities and opened in 1990.

The city's most impressive marquee is at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Plaza Hotel, which was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh. It has recently been restored in preparation for the building's reopening, and with its leaded glass and gilded ornamentation, it suggests opulence and black-tie celebrations. The Central Park West façade of the Plaza has another large marquee and three smaller ones, all ornately braced by fancy brackets.

The apartment building at 205 E. 59th St. has a narrow side-street entrance with a glass marquee supported by enormous shiny steel pipes that probably inspire its residents and visitors to dream of jungle gyms. The building was designed by Richard Dattner for the Zucker Organization, and completed in 2005.

At the Porter House at 366 W. 15th St., SHoP Architects in 2002 designed for Jeffrey Brown a large "shed" marquee that surrounds the entire base of the building, recalling the large sheds on many nearby meatpacking buildings. The front edge of the marquee is illuminated, which relates to the very dramatic lighting of the building's top floors.

While not every building needs comic-book characters cavorting above its entrance like at the Disney Store on Fifth Avenue at 55th Street, clearly marquees can set the stage for many flights of fancy.

Mr. Horsley is editor of cityrealty.com.