Jefferies Financial Group Headquarters (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, 1982_construction, postmodern (architecture)

577-foot, 43-story postmodern office building completed in 1982. Designed by Swanke Hayden & Connell, it was originally known as the Continental Illinois Building. It is clad in polished red granite. Unlike the usual slab building, it flares out at the bottom and curves toward the sidewalk on the north, east, and south sides. At the center of the north facade on 54th Street, there is a 2-story restaurant entrance framed in limestone, in contrast the the red granite everywhere else. Engaged quarter-columns with a scaled pattern support an entablature over the doors. The 2-story opening has infill has red and gold wood and glass. There is a slightly-recessed, 1-story wing extending to the west on 54th Street that contains three loading docks.

The north and south elevations have eight bays, each with a band of four smoke-grey windows, and there is an additional small bay at the west end that narrows as the east facade slopes inward. The east facade has nine total bays at the base, with the end bays narrowing and disappearing with the slope (that begins above the ground floor) to leave seven bays at the 14th floor, where the slope ends, above which the tower ascends vertically on all four sides. At the upper tower, the end bays on the east facade have three window panes instead of the four on the other bays.

To the left of the restaurant on the north facade, the rest of the ground floor has plate-glass storefronts, which also line the full east facade and the seven east bays on 53rd Street. The next two bays contain the deeply-recessed main entrance, with glass double-doors and revolving doors.

At the "waist" of the building where the sloped sides meet the vertical walls, the 14th floor is a mechanical level with black metal vents in the middle bays of each facade (windows remain in the end bays). At the roof line, there are two marked steps upward to the west.

The plaza to the west of the 53rd Street entrance has a waterfall in a red granite wall, as well as a sidewalk clock. There is also a 20-foot-long portion of the torn-down Berlin Wall on display in the lobby, which was previously located in the Urban Plaza behind the tower.

The ground floor storefronts are occupied by Papillon restaurant, Reiss clothing store, Stantt New York menswear, The Art of Shaving, Eredi Pisano clothing store, Birddogs clothing store, and Sephora cosmetics.