Americas Tower

 office building, skyscraper

692-foot, 50-story postmodern office building completed in 1992 for Americas Tower Partners. Designed by Swanke Hayden Connell, it is clad in glossy pink flamed and polished granite with grey granite in the spandrels, and borrows heavily from the Art-Deco style. The main entrance is at the center of the east facade, on the avenue, through a tall, 3-story recessed area in the 6-story base. A pair of revolving glass doors are flanked by single-doors, and topped by an expanse of glass. To either side are multiple levels of plate-glass windows and stainless steel spandrels, behind a colonnade of granite piers. The pale-pink piers have gently notched corners and subtle banding near the bottoms, where they rest on brighter pink granite plinths. Above the entrance, the top of the base is accented by a vertical metal fin bisecting the middle of the facade.

The south facade has four main bays, with another entrance with two revolving doors, storefronts in the two flanking bays, and open area behind the colonnade in the eastern bay. Above the ground floor there are paired vertical strips of windows the three western bays, each divided by a thin metal mullion, and with dark-grey glass spandrels. The eastern bay has a wider band of four windows per floor, with similar mullions and spandrels. At the top of the base, the piers extend slightly above each bay.

The north facade is wider, with six bays. The east bay matches that on the south facade, as do the other bays, except that the 3rd bay from the east has three strips of windows instead of two. At the ground floor of this bay is a loading dock. The two bays on either side have storefronts at the ground floor.

The sophisticated 49-story tower incorporates horizontal setbacks, a tapered spire and a beautiful colonnade cascading from its five-story pinnacle to the second floor. On each facade, projecting horizontal beams of darker-colored granite separate the top two floors of the base within each bay.

The tower portion rises above the base, with setbacks on each side and notched corners. The next major setback is above the 30th floor, where the west wing on the north facade ends, leaving the rest of the tower to rise symmetrically. Each bay has a double-window of dark-tinted glass, divided by a thin metal mullion, and grey spandrels between floors. The exceptions are at the middle of the east facade, where two vertical bands of dark glass frame two thin, grey metal piers around a central bay of three windows (narrower in the center); and the west facade, where a pair of single-window bays flank the center bay.

On the next section of the tower, rising to the 41st floor, the notched corners are replaced by chamfered corners with wrap-around, angled, dark-tinted glass on the northeast and southeast corners. The rest of the facades are similar to those below, except at the edges of the west elevation, where there are 3-window-wide curtain walls of glass. Above the next setback (only at the north and south elevations, where the piers extends a full floor above the level of the setback), these narrow to 2-window-wide sections. The chamfered glass continues on the northeast and southeast corners. On the north and south facades, most of the 42nd-45th floors are clad in grey granite, framed by pink granite at the further-recessed edges, and there are two bands of windows per floor. The grey granite gives way at the next setback to the pink granite facade, where there are two large square of windows spanning multiple floors. Above the final setback, again only at the north and south, these facades have grey granite cladding with large bays of windows. A recessed mechanical housing on the roof is partially shielded by a grey granite parapet, with an Art-Deco styled spire extending from the east end.

Besides the lobby, the ground floor is occupied by Charles Tyrwhitt men's clothing. The building is mainly occupied by the law firm of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel.