Churchill Apartments

 skyscraper, apartment building

394-foot, 32-story modernist cooperative-apartment building completed in 1967. Designed by Philip Birnbaum & Associates, this tower was the first of several major postwar apartment towers to rise in the vicinity, known for its Tudor City development. The building forms the shape of a large T, clad in white and light-grey brick. Low brick walls enclose landscaping that surrounds three sides of the building.

Along Second Avenue is a nearly block-wide curving driveway with massive steel statue and 2 water fountains that leads through a 2-story portico, with the upper floors overhanging it. The portico is defined by eight granite piers (light-grey in the middles, with darker edges) that create seven open-air bays. The portico is topped by a grey stone canopy the wraps around the drive and the facade above it. The ground floor of the south wing extending out toward 39th Street has two bays of plate-glass (one with a glass door incorporated into it), a double-door service entrance atop a long ramp with a rounded, brown canvas canopy, and two wide entrance/exits to the underground parking garage. The north wing is similar, but a smaller, simple serviced door. The east facade consists of a 2-story brick base fronted by a low, red brick wall that separates the Tunnel Approach Street. The base is topped by a grey stone band that wraps around the entire building. There are no ground-floor openings along the east facade, and the 2nd floor has 14 single-windows grouped into pairs. The 2nd floor at the south and north wings have two tripartite windows in the middle and two square double-windows at each end. At the west-facing elevations of the north and south wings, as well as the north- and south-facing walls of the west wing (the stem of the T) the base is clad in grey granite, with three bays (west-facing) and four bays (north- and south-facing) of ground-floor plate-glass windows and 2nd-floor tripartite windows above darker-grey stone panels.

The upper floors of the west end of the T, above the driveway, have four bays of tripartite windows and a center bay of single-windows. The end bays have projecting concrete balconies, pointed at the ends, with glass railings, beginning on the 5th floor. The west ends of the north and south faces of the T have four bays of double-windows around a single-window middle bay. Continuing to the east, these facades are recessed and have four bays of tripartite windows around a center tripartite bay fronted by more balconies. There are small joint areas between the three wings, both with double-windows wrapping around the corner, where they are joined by a metal mullion.

The north- and south-facing elevations of the north and south wings have four bays of tripartite windows with balconies at the outer bays, again starting at the 5th floor. The west-facing walls of the north and south wings have two inner bays of single-windows flanked by two bays of double-windows. The upper floors of the east facade have a center section recessed above the base with three wide bays of three narrow panes alternating with two wider panes, fronted by balconies at the center bay. The north and south wings have chamfered inner corners above the base, with 4-window bands on the inner-facing walls (the 4th pane angled on the chamfered corner). To the outside both wings have two bays of double-windows framing two single-window bays.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1991, with 586 apartments. There are roof decks on each wing, with large and small swimming pools on the west wing.