The Pierre Hotel, on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, recently closed for renovations, and the northernmost of its two canopied entrances is now boarded up.

Designed by Schultz & Weaver and erected in 1929, the Neo-Renaissance-style Pierre is notable for its large, green mansard roof and its light beige brick façade, above a one-story rusticated limestone base.

Rustication, a bold, rectilinear patterning in stone that usually is applied to the lower part of a building, is common on many pre-war luxury buildings.

Most New Yorkers are inured to the blight of sidewalk sheds, which cover up architecture and shopwindows. The Pierre’s boarded-up entrance, however, is a surprise: It is painted to look as if it continues the rustication of the building’s base, although the painted rustication has no depth, so the illusion is quite superficial.

Rustication often consists of large rectangular blocks that protrude somewhat from the building wall with grooves of varying depths. Sometimes the blocks are beveled, or have soft, pillowy curves, such as at 19 E. 72nd St., which Rosario Candela and Mott Schmidt designed in 1937, or at the former Edward J. Berwind Mansion at 2 E. 64th St., designed by Nathan Clark Mellen in 1896.

The most dramatic use of rustication in New York is probably at the W Hotel Union Square at 201 Park Ave. South. Not only is the rustication very deep, but also it has very pronounced and aggressive bevels. D’Oench & Yost designed the building in 1911 for the Germania Insurance Company, which later changed its name to the Guardian Life Insurance Company.

The city’s most famous rustications can be found on the Flatiron Building at 175 Fifth Ave., designed in 1903 by Daniel H. Burnham & Co.; the University Club at 1 W. 54th St., designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1899; York & Sawyer’s Renaissance-palazzo fortress, which now is the Apple Bank Building at 2112 Broadway on the Upper West Side, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York building at 33 Liberty St. in the financial district.

More recently, Arpad Baksa designed small, “rough” rusticated accent blocks for the Claremont at Union Square, at 126 University Place, completed in 2004. Rusticated patches are used even more effectively by Kohn Pedersen Fox and Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron in their prominent, mixed-use tower at 712 Fifth Ave., completed in 1990.

A startling application of rustication can be found in the National Basketball Association store, designed by Richard Altuna and the Phillips Group, at 666 Fifth Ave., where the rustication is diagonal and centered around imbedded metal basketballs.

Mr. Horsley is the editor of CityRealty.com.