875 3rd Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, 1983_construction, Modern (architecture)

399-foot, 29-story modernist office building completed in 1983. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, it is clad in a curtain wall of silver glass and dark-grey steel. The building takes the form of two intersecting octagons of irregular size. The main entrance is at the northwest, where the corner is chamfered, creating a plaza of front of the entrance and the intersection of 3rd Avenue and 53rd Street. Behind the entrance's glass wall, a pair of criss-crossing escalators can be seen, leading to the mezzanine. There is a small setback above to the center of the facade's upper floors, flanked on both sides by protruding wings with chamferered corners that hug the plaza. Between the wings, a metal canopy covers the glass revolving doors of the main entrance at the ground floor. Starting at the 6th floor, the ends (the chamfered corners) of both wings project out slightly from the flat end surfaces below, forming 3-sided bay windows. The ends bays have dark-grey metal spandrels between every floors, while the other facets of the wings, as well as the center section above the entrance, have spandrels framing the 6th-9th floors, 14th-16th floors, 19th-21st floors, and below the top two floors. At the rest of the floors, a glass curtain wall spans the floor groupings.

Tripartite glass storefronts with angled edges line the ground floor along the south part of the west facade that faces the avenue, with similar plate-glass windows at the 2nd-floor office bays. The main cladding pattern of silver glass and black metal begins at the 3rd floor, with two bays divided by an octagonal engaged black metal column.

The southwest corner is also chamfered, more so at the 2-story base that is recessed under the upper floors that are supported by a pair of black octagonal columns descending from the 3rd floor corners. There is another glass-walled lobby entrance, with plate-glass storefronts wrapping around from the corners on both sides. Like the two wings on the northwest face of the tower, the chamfered southwest corner has projecting bay windows beginning at the 6th floor.

The flat south facade on 52nd Street has four main bays along the base. The west half of the western bay angles back at the chamfered corner, with a storefront in the east half. The next bay has a pair of tripartite storefronts with angled edges, and the next bay has a storefront in the west half with a loading dock in the east half. The eastern bay has a wider loading dock at the ground floor. At the 2nd floor, all of these bays have tripartite windows with angled edges, matching the storefronts below. Engaged, octagonal, black metal columns separate the bays. At the east end, there is a setback above the 3rd floor, with the rest of that facet continuing at a 45-degree angle as another chamfered corner, two bays wide, this one facing southeast.

The north facade on 53rd Street has one flat bay (forming the side of one of the wings that enclose the plaza), filled at the lower two floors by a pair of tripartite storefronts and office windows. To the east is a slightly wider bay, with a double-height recessed area, at the back of which is another 2-story glass-walled entrance with two sets of revolving doors and traditional glass doors. There are two floors above this recessed area, which then sets back above the 4th floor. Above the setback is another 2-bay, 45-degree angled facet that faces northeast.

The east-facing facade has one bay at the north end, followed by an angled bay receding back to three more east-facing bays, joining to the two southeast-facing angled bays at the south end. The center bay of the three in the middle has grey metal vents in place of windows. Besides the lobby spaces, the ground floor is occupied by KUR Skin Lab, a Starbucks coffee, Matii Hair Salon, and Dor L'dor women's apparel.