Occupied first by the city jail and then by the grand house of Octavus Cohen, this trust lot was acquired by Bell Telephone in 1928 for use as a switching station and offices. Schutze’s muscular but graceful Georgian Revival mid-rise building demonstrates the telephone company’s commitment to civic architecture in the early twentieth century. The building originally faced Drayton Street and covered only the western two-thirds of the lot, but was seamlessly expanded in 1954 to its present size. In 1985 condominium developers Lafayette Square

Corporation acquired the building and, remarkably, excavated an underground parking garage.