The Orion (New York City, New York)

604-foot, 58-story modernist residential building completed in 2006. Designed by Cetra/Ruddy, it is clad in a blue-green glass curtain wall. The tower is set back above a 3-story base, with the ground floor clad in stainless steel and glass. There is an entrance to the underground parking garage in the east bay, and the main entrance in the west bay, under a metal-and-glass canopy; the middle bays contain storefronts. The top levels of the base are clad in nine bays of wide horizontal metal panels in a checkerboard pattern of light- and dark-greens and grey metal vent panels.

The east side of the tower rises vertically to the roof line, with a curtain wall of expressed light-greenish piers and spandrels framing bays of darker glass. At the west half of the north facade there is a projecting section, with the glass of the windows only interrupted by horizontal spandrels and the same light-greenish color. To either side of the projecting section the spandrels are thinner and of silver-grey metal. The west facade has a similar projecting section at the north half.

There is a large, 2-story break in the west half of the north facade, and at the north half of the west facade, at the 28th-29th floors, with squared metal columns supporting the floors above. The south half of the tower, with a wing extending back to 41st Street, also sets back at this level. The two floors just below the setback, on the south end, have black metal vents for mechanical equipment instead of the glass on the rest of the facades. Above the 2-story gap, the curtain wall of the top floors takes of the pattern from the east end of the north facade's lower floors, with light-greenish piers and spandrels framing bays of darker glass, while the south half has the horizontal grey spandrels.

On 41st Street, the 3-story base extends out to the building line. The ground floor has grey stone piers dividing large silver metal louvers and a small service door at the west end. Above is one very large metal louver vent filling almost the rest of the space of the base. The Orion contains 529 condominium units. The ground floor on 42nd Street is occupied by a Starbucks coffee, and Gopuff.

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