Sterling Drug Company Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper

515-foot, 41-story International-style office building completed in 1964. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, it has a curtain wall of navy-tinted glass and dark brown-grey metal, above a 2-story base of lightly-fluted black metal piers and glass. The east facade, on Park Avenue, has a recessed central section creating a plaza. There are 12-story wings on either side, each six bays wide, with the main tower rising vertically from the rear of the plaza; there are four entrances, each framed in brass, with revolving doors at the outer entrances. Each regular bay is composed of a double-window, with thin mullions separating the bays and bands of spandrels between floors. The center section is eight bays wide between the 12-story wings, and 12 bays wide above it, up to the roof line. The plaza has a pair of flagpoles and a metal sculpture of two interlocking rings.

The south facade on 39th Street has 22 bays (the ground floor bays are wider, generally spanning the width of two curtain-wall bays). The three western ground-floor bays have entrance and exits to the underground parking garage. The south 12-story wing from the front facade extends back 11 bays; the remaining western half of the facade sets back above the 7th floor, and again at the 9th, 12th, and 14th floor, before a final setback above the 18th floor gives way to the main vertical tower at the east half of the structure, which takes roughly the form of a square. The 12-story wing on the east end has a small extension also setting back above the 18th floor.

The north facade on 40th Street is a mirror image of the south facade, except that it only spans 19 bays, the final three bays missing from the west end. All four facades of the square upper tower have a black metal vents at the tall mechanical floor topping the building. The Sterling Drug Company pondered a move of its headquarters from here to New Jersey in 1987, but ultimately decided ti remain in Manhattan. The ground floor is occupied by a Citibank branch, Tartinery cafe, a Starbucks coffee, a Bank of America branch, and Park Avenue KinderCare.