Trump Park Avenue (New York City, New York)

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351-foot, 31-story Neo-Renaissance/Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1929 as a hotel. Designed by Goldner & Goldner, it opened as the Viceroy Hotel, but its name changed not long after to the Cromwell Arms and then to Delmonico’s after the fabled restaurant that moved into it after a succession of uptown moves on October 1, 1929, a few weeks before the stock market crash. Built at a cost of about $5 million, the 525-room property known as the Delmonico Hotel was sold at auction in 1936 for 1.8 million.

Over the years, it switched from hotel use to rental to cooperative and back to hotel use and then in 2005 to condo use. In 2002, Donald Trump acquired the property from the estate of Sarah Korein for $115 million and started its $80 million conversion to condominiums while changing its name to Trump Park Avenue. The sale did not include a small adjoining building at 59 East 59th Street that was being donated to a private foundation for use as a not-for-profit theater.

The main facades are clad in brown brick with ivory terra-cotta trim above a 3-story limestone base (rusticated on the 2nd & 3rd floors). The main entrance is on Park Avenue, is the middle bay of three double-height round-arches. Two spiral columns within this arch divide the ground floor into two end windows and double-doors in the middle, each framed in bronze and having a transom above. The entry is covered by a suspended bronze-and-black-steel canopy with bronze lettering. Above it, the top of the arch at the 2nd floor is divided into a tripartite window. The other two arched bays have storefronts of plate-glass and bronze at the ground floor, with tripartite window at the 2nd floor. In between them are two narrower bays with display windows topped by white terra-cotta panels of Renaissance ornament, outlined in dark-grey granite; at the 2nd floor they have small double-windows. The two end bays have storefront entrances with bronze-and-glass double-doors and transoms framed in granite, with wide single-windows at the 2nd floor. The 3rd floor has double-windows in the five middle bays, and single-windows in the end bays, and the piers of the base have light-grey granite bases.

On 59th Street, the south facade of the base has 10 bays, with bronzed-framed tripartite show-windows in the eastern five; they all have bronze grilles and the eastern two have dark-grey granite surrounds. The next bay to the west is recessed, and has another grille, but only a metal service door below it. The next two bays have simpler tripartite show-windows, the next one a commercial entrance with glass double-doors and sidelights, and the end bay has another service door. The piers again have granite bases, and they are painted grey, with the two floors above a lighter shade with rustication. The 2nd & 3rd floors have 10 bays, all with narrow double-windows except for the end bays and third bays from each end, with have wide single-windows. At the 2nd floor the outermost double-windows have small stone shields above them, flanked by scrolled garlands and outlined by moldings. The base is capped by a dentiled stone cornice.

The upper floors have seven bays on the east facade, with narrow double-windows in the middle and single-windows in the end bays. At the 4th-5th floors the center and outer double-windows bays have 2-story terra-cotta surrounds with small flourishes at the tops, and spandrels between floors with elaborate Renaissance ornament. These terra-cotta spandrels are also in the other two double-window bays. At the 7th floor there are projecting sills and the double-windows change to paired windows separated by brick mullions; they are round-arched at the 12th floor. At the 14th floor the end bays also switch to paired windows; they and the next bay on either side are enclosed by arcades of six projecting round-arches carried on projecting columns (two of the arches top the piers). The wide piers around the middle three bays have projecting, 2-story fluted columns extending down to bases at the 13th floor; they carry a dentiled terra-cotta cornice that also extends across the arcades at the ends, where the north and south wings set back. The columns are topped by urns and shields above the cornice. There are additional setbacks above the 16th & 18th floors. The middle bays extend up into the tower section rising vertically to the roof line. The three bays at the 17th-18th floors are framed by 2-story terra-cotta surrounds with ornamented spandrels between the floors. The outer bays here change to wide single-windows just for these two floors. The end piers of the tower are lined by vertical terra-cotta strips. At the north wing, the setback 15th-16th floors and 17th-18th floors have two bays of paired windows, behind scrolls at the inner edge of the 15th floor, where the tower begins to rise, and the south wing has one such bay at the 15th-16th floors, and a single-window at the 17th-18th. The wings are topped by scalloped band courses at the 16th floor. At the north wing there are three more floors before a shallow setback. The 19th floor has a set of French doors opening onto the terrace created by the setback below, and the 20th & 21st floors has three windows in a terra-cotta surround, round-arched at the 21st floor. Two more floors of the north wing rise before being capped by a part of the condominium conversion by architect Costas Kondylis that added substantial space to several of the tower's floors on the north and west sides -- cubic vertical extensions clad in glass and not at all in context with the building's architectural style.

The upper floors on the south facade have five bays of double-windows in the middle (changing to paired windows at the 7th floor), and the ends have two wide single-windows flanking a narrow double-window. The trim and ornament matches that of the east facade. The outer bays again set back above the 14th floor, with a shallow setback above the 16th, and then wider, full-width setback across the 18th. At the projecting middle section of the 19th-21st floors, there is a paired-window bay flanked by single-windows, and angled sides with paired windows (with larger plate-glass windows at the 19th floor). The set-back wings are similar to those on the east facade, and there is a shallow setback above the 21st floor, and the roof line at the 2rd floor is marked by a band course. At the east side the tower continues to rise, with a mix of single-windows and double-windows giving way to three bays of paired windows alternating with single-windows at the top few floors. Behind the tower, on the west side, another glass cube rises up from the lower roof line (in the center of the building's mass) and extends up to the 29th floor. The tower ends above the two glass cubes, with the 30th floor faced fully in terra-cotta, underlined by a scalloped band coursed, and having an arcaded row of arched windows along each of the four facades. The tower is crowned by a pitched red tile roof.

Homes on the 3rd and 4th floors have large units that were once the hotel’s ballrooms and have ceiling heights up to 15 feet. Floors 5-15 are one, two and three-bedroom units and terraced homes begin on the 16th floor. Trump Park Avenue has a duplex penthouse with 17-foot ceilings and 42 oversized arched windows that had a price tag of $30 million. In total there are 122 condominium units. Besides the lobby, the ground floor (and basement level) are occupied by New York Sports Clubs, a Capital One Bank branch, and Scully & Scully home goods store.