One Lincoln Plaza (New York City, New York)

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490-foot, 44-story modernist residential building completed in 1972. Designed by Philip Birnbaum & Associates, One Lincoln Plaza was the first major apartment building to be built in the area after the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opened in the 1960s. It uses the addresses of 20 West 64th Street, 1900 Broadway, and 33 West 63rd Street in addition to 1 Lincoln Plaza. The building has an angled, setback tower on a low-rise 7-story base that frames a mid-block, landscaped plaza. The base features a deep 2-story arcade along Broadway, with storefronts on the ground floor. The upper floors of the base contain office space, with commercial tenants including three prominent companies in the entertainment industry: Sesame Workshop (which produces Sesame Street), SAG-AFTRA, and the prestigious American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); the headquarters of ASCAP have been at One Lincoln Plaza since 1974.

The tower is distinguished by its two-tone façade of beige and dark brown brick that provides vertical accents, scores of satellite dishes around its rooftop bulkhead, and its bent, angled form. Along Broadway, the base has three wide center bays (each with a band of six window panes on the upper floors), flanked by two narrow bays of two panes, wider bays of five panes, another set of narrow 2-pane bays, and narrow end bays with two panes. Above the 2-story arcade, the piers are dark-brown brick, projecting slightly, and the spandrels are beige brick in the wide bays, dark-brown in the narrow bays (except for the end bays, which are also beige). The lower two floors are faced in concrete, with white marble lining the sides of the piers. The 2nd floor, also recessed within the arcade above the storefronts, has limestone cladding and bands of windows grouped into threes. Some of the restaurants in the storefronts have patio seating in front that extends out to the sidewalk. In the southern of the three main center bays is a main building entrance, set back at an angle, with two sets of glass double-doors; this bay has a green-glass and metal canopy above the ground floor.

The north facade of the base on 64th Street is similar, with marble-lined concrete piers between storefronts at the ground floor, limestone spandrels separating the 2nd floor lined with window bands, and upper floors with brown brick spandrels in the wide bays and beige spandrels in the narrow ones. At the west end is a 4-pane bay that extends out over the arcade below, coming to a point at the northwest corner. To the east is a narrow 2-pane bay, a wide 5-pane bay, another 2-pane bay, three wide 6-pane bays, another 2-pane bay, another wide 5-pane bay, and a 2-pane end bay at the east edge, where the base sets back at the point it joins in with the rest of the tower's facade. This section continues the design of the base at its lower seven floors, with a wide central bay that is subdivided into a 4-pane middle part, 2-pane east end, and 4-pane west end, with black metal paneling on the piers instead of brick. Flanking this are two narrow 2-pane bays, a wide 5-pane bay on the east and a wide 4-pane bay on the west, and end bays with three panes on the west and four panes on the east. The three western bays have storefronts on the ground floor. At the eastern bays, the two lower floors are combined into a taller ground floor of dark-brown granite, set behind a long granite planter box on the sidewalk. Three of these bays are slightly recessed to a glass wall below the upper floors, with limestone panels at the top, between the granite piers. The eastern of these three is an open-air corridor through the base of the tower, emerging onto a small park space that fronts 63rd Street. The eastern end bay has an entrance/exit to the underground parking garage.

There is a large, landscaped deck on top of the triangular 7-story base to the northwest of the tower. The 8th floor serves as a transitional level between the base and upper floors of the tower, with each bay deeply recessed between the piers, on the north and south facades, as well as the west, where the tower is set back behind the base. The south facade has six bays at its west end on 63rd Street, continuing the pattern of the rest of the base, with 2-pane windows in the outer bays, and 3-pane windows in the middle two, which are separated by black metal paneled piers.

To the east, a sharply-angled facade extends back behind a deep, wedge-shaped park plaza to the longer east section of the south facade. The angled, east-facing facade has slightly-projecting brown brick piers dividing it into seven main sections. Three of these have bays of double-windows (south) paired with bays of tripartite windows (north), with beige brick spandrels spanning both bays, and brown brick pier sections at each floor level. These three are separated by two narrower sections with tripartite windows and brown brick spandrels. The far north section has two bays of tripartite windows and beige spandrels, and the south end bays has double-windows and beige spandrels. The east part of the south facade, set far back behind the park plaza and a small 5-story building, has three wide sections each with two bays of tripartite windows, followed to the east by a bay of triple-windows (with brown spandrels), a wide section with two bays of double-windows, another bay of triple windows (with brown spandrels), and an end bay of double-windows. At the ground level on the east end, a long driveway leads back to the through-block passage below the building, and a ramp leads down the the parking garage.

The wide northwest-facing facade, overlooking the triangular base, has three sections near the center with two bays of tripartite windows; these have beige brick spandrels and brown brick piers at each floor. Flanking these are bays of tripartite windows with brown brick, a section of double-windows and tripartite windows with beige spandrels, and outer bays of tripartite windows with brown brick. There is an end bay of beige brick at the south with double-windows that the spandrels don't extend across. Above the main roof line is visible the building’s glass-enclosed roof-top health club that has a retractable dome covered pool, exercise rooms, steam and sauna, and sun decks. A rather large mechanical bulkhead rises from the north corner of the roof, at the bend of the tower.

The narrow east-facing facade on 64th Street has two middle bays of double-windows, with beige brick spandrels and separate by a brown brick pier panel between each floor. Flanking this on either side is a bay completely clad in brown brick, with single-windows. The end bays are beige brick and have double-windows, although at some floors these have been replaced with wide single panes of glass.

The building contains 655 condominium units. A Whole Foods grocery store is located in the building’s basement. The ground floor along the base is occupied by The Emporium Ltd. antiques, 64 Nail & Spa, Tower West Cleaners, Boulud Sud restaurant/Epicurie Boulud, Bar Boulud, Cafe Fiorello, The Smith restaurant, and a Citibank branch.