United States-A home for a butcher.

UNITED STATES-A HOME FIT FOR A BUTCHER.

A Grand Meat Retailer

Q. Do you know a building on 119th Street between Second and Third that has two-story arched windows and two

terra-cotta cows’ heads on the second floor? Too grand I think to have been a dairy — maybe a clubhouse? ... Jean Arrington, Manhattan

A. Built in 1896, this building was at the center of the meat empire of Richard Webber. Born in England, he started a butcher business in Harlem in the 1870s and expanded it until it employed 500. In 1895, Mr. Webber had the architects Bartholomew Walther and John Walther design the tall arcaded structure for refrigerated storage.

The soft orange-yellow brick facade is arranged in high arcades, trimmed with carved granite. A pair of heads of cattle — probably terra cotta — project from rondels at the second floor; of four horns, three are broken off.

Mr. Webber was a prominent man: when the Harlem River was widened to make it navigable to the Hudson in 1895, he contributed the dressed-meat exhibition to the celebratory parade. At his death in 1908, The National Provisioner described Mr. Webber as the largest meat retailer in the world.

His building is now a showroom of Davis & Warshow, plumbing suppliers.