Vanderbilt Condominiums | skyscraper

 skyscraper, condominium

433-foot, 40-story postmodern residential building completed in 1986. Designed by Frank Williams & Associates, it is clad in granite, brick, and limestone. The building is situated on the north part of the site, with a large landscaped plaza at the south half (on 39th Street), leading to the main entrance. There is also a driveway connecting to the two pass-through driveways from 40th Street (as well as a pedestrian corridor) that lead under the west end of the building, supported above by three rows of banded stone pillars with rounded capitals. Each facade is clad in beige brick with horizontal bands of white stone between the floors, above a white granite base, with banding in some parts.

The south facade has three groupings of projecting balconies with metal railings, extending further to the south as each group moves to the east, with recessed bays of double-windows between each balcony group. There is a slightly set-back end bay of triple-windows at the west end, and another at the east end, with an additional bay set much further back. All of the end bays have metal vents cut below the windows. At the bays with balconies, there are metal vents located to the east of each balcony, and the balconies themselves wrap around the southwest corner of each bay. The main entrance has brass-and-glass doors, with a green rounded canopy extending partway out into the courtyard. To the right of the entrance is a storefront with its own, shorter, white rounded canopy.

The east facade has single-windows wrapping around the from the north-facing walls at the two set-back bays, with the wall in between the two having a bay of narrow single-windows, a bay of double-windows, and two bays of triple-windows, the latter ones also with vents cut below. The further-east-projecting north part of the east elevation, at the 2nd set-back bay, has (besides the wrap-around window from the south-facing wall) a bay of double-windows, and two bays of single-windows, one narrower than the other, with another wrap-around window at the northeast corner. This wraps around to a wide eastern bay on the north facade, which has three joined double-windows. To the right is a double-window bay and a bay with two double-windows that wraps around a small setback. This first setback area of the north facade has two bays of double-windows, and then another bay of two double-windows with a wrap-around window to the last, further setback area of the north facade. This western section, overhanging the driveways, has two bays of triple-windows, the western one wrapping around the corner. To the east of the driveways, there are two areas of planted ground cover contained in low brick retaining walls with stone coping on top, broken in the center by a brick-paved entrance to a storefront with a brown rounded canopy. The storefront on 41st Street is occupied by Hana Nails & Spa, while the storefront on the opposite, south side of the ground floor is occupied by Tower Cleaners, and a shoe repair shop. The Vanderbilt contains 363 condominium units.