Carnegie Hall Tower

 office building, skyscraper, 1991_construction, postmodern (architecture)

757-foot, 60-story Postmodern office building completed in 1991. Designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, the tower was built in an architectural style in harmony with its western neighbor Carnegie Hall, a New York landmark. The Carnegie Hall Tower seems impossibly slim from the front (the main shaft is 50 feet wide), however it has wide sides facing its neighbors, the Russian Tea Room and Metropolitan Tower on the east and Carnegie Hall on the west. It is clad in brick and glazed brick of several colors (mainly orange, purple-brown, and grey-green to not match, but rather complement Carnegie Hall), with precast concrete lintels above windows, and painted metal bands at intervals of six floors.

The ground floor on the north facade on 57th Street has a large main entrance framed in grey granite. There are two recessed bronze-and-glass revolving doors flanking two traditional doors, with transoms above. On the grey granite pillars on either side are panels of black marble with metal lettering spelling out the building's address. Above these are pairs of lighting fixtures. above the doors is a bronze marquee and bronze metal screen, and bronze lettering on the top of the granite frame spelling out "CARNEGIE HALL TOWER". There is also a pair of square poster boxes flanking the entrance, both framed by black marble. A pair of stone band courses sets off the 2nd floor, with the grey granite cornice of the entry surround overlapping the middle of the lower band course.

The 2nd floor has five bays of windows with purple stone surrounds, the middle three grouped together. At the 3rd-4th floors, the windows are taller (with 3-over-2 panes instead of 2-over-2), and limestone and purple brick spandrels separate the two floors. The middle three bays have limestone surrounds, while the outer two have brick. A dark-green metal railing fronts the base of each of the windows at the 3rd floor, and projecting limestone hoods cap the bays at the 4th floor, where another stone band course crosses the facade, with roundels flanking the end bays. The 5th & 6th floors have windows more like those on the 2nd, but with stone sills and lintels instead of purple brick surrounds. Small, purple brick square accent the spandrels between these two floors. A modilioned cornice marks the setback of the base above the 6th floor.

The shaft of the tower above is divided into 6-floor segments by the metal bands. There are three middle bays of square windows, and end bays of wider windows. The end bays are clad in orange brick and have small beige square flanking the windows at each floor. The middle section has darker orange and purple brick, with larger beige squares at the tops of the piers between the windows. The four floors below the top floors are clad in glazed, dark-green brick, with the middle bays joined into a band of four windows. There are four windows across the top floor, below the cornice, which has orange brick with stone band courses above and below. The large, comb-like cornice atop the north, west, and south sides of the shaft is an open trellis of wide-flange steel sections.

The west facade rising above Carnegie Hall has a smaller 42-story slab projecting from the south half of the main tower slab. The materials are like those on the north facade. The smaller slab has four bays of square windows in the middle in purple brick with end bays in orange brick, and the main tower slab behind and to the north has six bays of square windows - the southern three in purple brick and the northern three in orange, with the same small beige squares ornamenting the facade. The top of the smaller slab copies the top of the main tower, with three floors of glazed green brick below the smaller section's top floor. Above, the upper floors of the main slab have seven more bays of windows on the south end. The green brick top floors continue from the north facade, with windows arranged into alternating bays of single-windows and bands of three windows. The top floor has 13 bays of evenly-spaced square windows.

The south facade on 56th Street has a service entrance and a loading dock at the west end, both with red metal doors. To the right is the main entrance from 56th Street, double-height and framed in grey granite; its design very closely matches that of the north entrance, but with an extra level of bronze screening at the 2nd floor. There is a small storefront at the east end, with paired bronze-and-glass doors and transoms. Above, there is a rectangular vent opening with an ornamental metal screen at the 2nd floor, and three more to the left of the entrance, above the service bays. A stone band course caps the 2nd floor, broken by the top of the entrance surround. Above the entrance, the 3rd-4th floors have three narrow window bays flanked by brown brick piers. There is one bay of larger windows to the east and three to the west, with stone lintels that have small, recessed roundels. A thinner band course sets off the 5th floor, which has six 2-over-2 windows in purple brick surrounds. A modillioned cornice like the one on the north side caps the base, where there is a setback.

The floors above have three small, square windows above the entrance, flanked by a larger square window at the east end, and three on the west, the end two (which make up the south face of the smaller tower slab) grouped closer together. Another modillioned cornice caps a shallow setback above the 13th floor, in line with the main roof line of Carnegie Hall. From here on, the south facade mirrors the north, except for the addition of the 2-bay shorter slab at the west end, which ends at the 42nd floor.

The east elevation is clad in orange brick at the north and south ends, with brown brick in the middle, where the elevator banks are located. There is a bay of paired windows at the north and south end, with another bay of single-windows at the lower floors before the last setback on the south end. The metal band courses continue onto this facade as well, and the green glazed brick at the top is also continued on this facade.

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