Caryatids, those stately maidens holding up the porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens, and their male counterparts, known as Atlantes or Telemones, are obvious means of humanizing architecture.

In our increasingly virtual and animated world of superheroines, superheroes, and supervillains — and in an architectural era that is becoming decreasingly rectilinear — such curvaceous and brawny embellishments may once again become popular.

The city’s most dramatic caryatids are atop the former American Tract Society Building at 150 Nassau St., near the Brooklyn Bridge. They are lashed in as if being protected from the changing dynamics of the Lower Manhattan skyline.

New York’s most attractive caryatids are tucked beneath the cornice of Louis Sullivan’s ornate Bayard-Condict Building at 65 Bleecker St., between Broadway and Lafayette Street. It is the only building in the city by Mr. Sullivan, the Chicago architect famed for his exuberantly organic designs.

The Sullivan building was erected in 1898, four years after another sextet of caryatids were placed on the façade of the commercial building at 91 Fifth Ave., between 16th and 17th streets. That building was designed by Louis Korn.

Some of the most beautiful examples of caryatids have been destroyed: There were several on the second floor of the luxury apartment building at 667 Madison Ave., which was demolished in 1989. There were also three atlantes, representing different races, sculpted by Karl Bitter above the entrance to the St. Paul Building across Broadway from St. Paul’s Chapel, near City Hall. The building, which was briefly the tallest in the world, was demolished in 1959; the atlantes were saved and are now in Holliday Park in Indianapolis.

A group of caryatids representing the four seasons and sculpted by Thomas Shields Clarke in 1899 can be found on the Madison Avenue façade of the Appellate Division courthouse at 25th Street, and the city’s newest caryatids support a large sculpture of Duke Ellington by Robert Graham that was installed in 1997 at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street.

Other nice caryatids can be found at the top of the stoop at 32 St. Marks Place, near the top of the luxury apartment building at 960 Fifth Ave., and near the top of the low-rise building at 542 Broadway.

Caryatids and atlantes, of course, are not free-standing sculptures but structural elements. At the great Dorilton apartment building on the northeast corner of Broadway and 71st Street, two atlantes can be witnessed struggling to support the weight of a balcony on the side street.

The city’s “freshest” caryatids can be found in the recently restored, skylit Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel.

Although the ancients often painted their statues, modern tastes seem to prefer the raw limestone or marble. No lipstick, please.

Mr. Horsley is the editor of CityRealty.com.