This diminutive building still exists but the 1968 design is obscured by a contemporary design. Originally passerby saw a law firm housed behind a facade of glass in bronzed aluminum framing and surrounded by a peripheral frame of marble facing; today one sees a plain box of concrete painted blue and housing a karaoke bar.
Black and Decker is long gone but this simple one-story building today exists as Parrillada Restaurant. Everything but the basic shape and the corner window bay has been altered.
The basic shape of this curved corner commercial site is still visible although otherwise largely altered. The original design attempted to be classic yet contemporary by being both low-scale with numerous windows and use of elegant materials such as limestone, white marble, stainless steel, and granite. There were also originally numerous neon signs advertising the commercial establishments located here, although not referenced in the award program. Today the building is a bank and over the entrance in the recessed curve is a large mural of the sites of Forest Hills, a fitting addition to a commercial building built and owned by the company that developed much of the surrounding neighborhood.
Van Wyck Lanes lasted from 1961-2008. The building is three stories and originally had pastel colors on the exterior and interior and a engaging diamond-shaped canopy over the entrance. In addition to bowling there was also a restaurant and bar and grill. The building has been substantially altered and is unrecognizable except for its general shape and location. It is now a pharmacy.
Today this building is a plain brick industrial building that has been converted to educational use. But when it won an award in 1966, the building featured an unusual combination of breeze block screens, fieldstone veneer around the entrance, aluminum framing the windows, and vertical piers of marble chips embedded in white cement. Sadly, none of this remains today as an example of when companies were using eye-catching buildings to stand out from fellow competitors. The owner of the building Arnold Levien likely gave the architect and his relative, Maurice Levien, a loose hand to design as he liked when he radically altered the building from its previous appearance.