South Park Tower

 office building, skyscraper, apartment building, 1986_construction

515-foot, 51-story modernist residential building completed in 1986. Designed by Buck/Cane Architects, it was the tallest building in the Lincoln Center area when it built. The building's slab form, which runs south to north, recalls to a certain extent the massing of the great skyscraper at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. While the towers are stylistically quite different in materials and detailing, the use of complex and subtle massing is similar. It is clad in grey-brown brick, with rusticated limestone at the lower two floors of the 9-story base on 60th Street, above a black granite water table. The main residential entrance is located at the center of this facade on 60th Street, with sliding glass doors set within a slightly recessed wall of glass with a grid of black metal framing. A rounded, black canvas canopy extends out over the sidewalk. To either side is a recessed window grid of 3-over-4 panes (the lowest panes near the ground being shorter). The east end of the ground floor has a metal service door, and the west end has a wide, low opening with gridded glass infill and a glass door at the left. A stone band course runs across the ground floor, broken by the slightly taller opening at the main entrance; here the climbs upward with two right angles, not quite meeting in the middle where a vertical band of black stone framing a column of small glass blocks extends up from the opening, through the 2nd floor. A pair of L-shaped black granite panels flanks this central band, extending partway into the 3rd floor. To the east the 2nd floor has three bays of square windows, and to the west there are four.

The upper floors of the base are brick. There is a central bay of double-windows, flanked by a wide bay of seven narrow window panes on either side, and another bay of double-windows, as well as an extra end bay at the west with single-windows. The 9th floor has six separate bays of double-windows (plus the single-window western end bay) around a central bay with a large window opening of many square panes that has an extra pane in width at both sides on its upper half, sitting flush with the top edge of the base.

On 59th Street the building is set back behind a small courtyard. On the east end there is a landscaped garden behind a low brick wall with tall brick piers joined by green metal fencing. At the center, a green metal gate opens onto the courtyard, and to the west a 2-story extension of the base projects out to the sidewalk. It has an entrance to the underground parking garage and a loading dock at the ground floor, and four square openings at the 2nd floor, with glass blocks. The south facade of the tower is six bays wide, with the middle two projecting forward. The lower floors are occupied by the Mount Sinai West hospital's Physician Office Building, with the entrance through glass-and-metal double-doors framed by a glass-and-metal wall, stair-stepping to a point at the top, and itself in turn framed by a limestone surround that also stair-steps up to surround a large square window at the 2nd floor. There is a double-window at the east end bay on the 2nd floor. Above, the 3rd floor has triple-windows in the two projecting middle bays, and the full span of windows begins on the 4th floor, with double-windows at the four outer bays while the triple-windows continue at the middle bays; these wrap around the corners to narrow side panes, and the end-bay windows also wrap around the corners of the facade.

Above the 9th floor the building transitions to residential levels, with the triple-windows in the middle bays replaced by wide panes paired with narrow panes to the inside (the bays are the same size as below). Projecting concrete balconies extend from the ends of the projecting middle bays and have metal railings. On the north side the tower is slightly set back from the base, but mirrors the design of the south facade's upper floors.

The east and west elevations are wider, spanning 13 total bays. The end bays have wide windows wrapping around from the corners, with single-window bays immediately to the inside. The next bays from the south are two bays of triple-windows, a bay of double-windows, and another bay of triple-windows, while the next bay from the north is a triple-window bay. The remaining five bays, north of center, are very slightly protruding from the rest of the facade, and are different on the east and west facades. At the west elevation they consist of triple-windows at the ends and a wide bay of two double-windows joined by a large square pane in the center. Between these are two bays of French doors fronted by projecting, rounded balconies with metal railings. At the east elevation the projecting bays consist of double-windows at the ends, wide bays that project a bit farther to the inside, and a wide center bay of gently rounded projecting balconies in front of recessed French doors. On both facades, the balconies begin at the 11th floor and they extend up to the 45th floor on the east elevation, and to the 47th on the west. At the top four floors on the east facade, the bays immediately flanking the projecting balcony bay set back and have squared balconies extending out to the edge of the bays below. All four facades are striped with white floor plates. The south facade also has setbacks above the 43rd and 47th floors.

The building contains 498 apartment units.