POSTINGS: In Times Square, a New Landmark: I. Miller Building, With 4 Calder Sculptures; There's No Business Like Shoe Business

On Broadway's newest landmark are four delightful sculptures by Alexander Calder.

Alexander Stirling Calder, that is; the father of the mobile artist and a respected sculptor himself, responsible for one of the statues of George Washington on the arch at Washington Square in Greenwich Village.

His work adorns the former I. Miller Building at Broadway and 46th Street -- ''The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated To Beavty In Footwear,'' as the cornice still decrees -- which was designated a landmark Tuesday by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

''The wonderful 'shoe' building just makes you smile as you walk past,'' said the commission chairwoman, Jennifer J. Raab.

A self-described history buff, Dennis Riese, the chairman, president and chief executive of the Riese Organization, which owns the four-story structure, said: ''My building is one of the few remaining properties in Times Square that has any historical significance. I was really all in favor of preserving this facade.'' Mr. Riese plans to open a 325-seat T. G. I. Friday restaurant there in October.

In 1927, Calder pere was commissioned to produce four statues for the facade of a luxurious new store that Israel Miller was planning in Times Square. Miller, a Polish immigrant, had earned his reputation as a shoemaker for theatrical productions and then to the stars themselves.

Paying homage to the theater, Miller invited the public to vote for its favorite actresses. Their likenesses would be placed in gold-tiled niches above the shop windows of the building, designed by Louis H. Friedland.

And the winners were: for opera, Rosa Ponselle in the title role of ''Norma''; for movies, Mary Pickford in the title role of ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (1921); for musical comedy, Marilyn Miller in the title role of ''Sunny'' (1925) and for drama, Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia, a non-title role.

''A theater enthusiast from the age of 6, when he was taken to see Edwin Booth in Hamlet, Calder especially enjoyed the I. Miller project because it involved working with performers,'' said the landmarks designation report. The store opened in 1929, with Mayor Jimmy Walker and 3,000 others in attendance, and operated through the 1970's.

The Riese family bought the building in 1983. It is offering to lease or sell two enormous billboard structures on the Broadway side of the building. The landmarks designation does not require their removal.

Mr. Riese said he hoped to ''polish up the facade, polish up the statues and put nice architectural spotlights on them.'' Conceding that his father and uncle, Murray and Irving, had not paid much attention to maintaining the building in the past, he added: ''It survived by accident in those years. Now, it's going to survive by design.''

DAVID W. DUNLAP