Cosmopolitan Condominiums (New York City, New York) | high-rise, 1986_construction

 condominiums, high-rise, 1986_construction

364-foot, 35-story postmodern residential building completed in 1986. Designed by Gruzen Samton Steinglass, it has a symmetrical facade clad in red brick above a 3-story limestone base. There are two wide end bays, and a central entrance bay flanked by two narrow bays, with double-height openings at the lower two floors. The entry has glass doors and a metal canopy extending out over the sidewalk. The piers are rusticated and rest of grey granite bases. The narrow bays flanking the main entrance have secondary doors at the ground floor and tripartite windows at the 2nd floor, divided by black metal spandrels. Both of the end bays have wide bands of six windows and similar spandrels at the 2nd floor; the ground floor at the west bay has a storefront, and at the east bay an entrance/exit to the underground parking garage. The 3rd floor has windows at the center and end bays; those at the end bays are shorter.

The main, south-facing facade is set back from the building line and has two extremely handsome columns of rounded, projecting bay windows composed of five tall panes for the lower two-thirds of the building and a more complex treatment at the top of indented and cutout balconies. Both columns spring from stone bases just above the top of the 3rd floor and have green metal mullions. Small, square spandrels between each floor at all five panes are of black metal.

Between the two projecting columns are two bays of double-windows, and to each side is another bay of double-windows and an end bay of triple-windows. There are metal air-conditioning vents below each window group, and directly to the outside side of both projecting columns. There is a shallow setback above the 6th floor at the middle two bays and the end bays, creating small terraces with metal railings. The middle bays continue up in a recessed niche until the 17th floor, where a projecting brick balcony spans the recessed area in the middle. Matching balconies span the 18th & 19th floors, and there are two additional 3-floor groupings of balconies at higher floors, only these are divided in the center by a vertical brick beam.

The projecting columns of bay windows end at the 23rd floor, but then resume for three floors at a small setback above the 25th floor. A variation of the columns reappears at the 32nd-34th floors, where there are rounded, projecting balconies not enclosed by windows. The end bays have setbacks above the 29th floor, with recessed balconies above. A final setback at the end bays occurs above the 34th floor. At the top floor, the middle two bays are joined in a projecting, rounded bay with a wide band of windows. There is a tall rooftop mechanical penthouse, clad in red brick, and featuring a round water tower enclosure at the south end, also clad in red brick, atop a circle of stilt-like columns.

The east and west facades have double-windows at the front edge, wrapping around from the south facade's end bays and ending at the 29th-floor setback. Behind this bay is a bay of double-windows with an open-air extension of the recessed balconies at the top floors. Three bays of single-windows make up the middle of the side elevations, and the rear also has recessed balconies at the top floors.

The north-facing rear facade has a central bay of single-windows, extending up into the rooftop mechanical bulkhead. This is flanked on both sides by a bay of double-windows, a bay of triple-windows (changing to double-windows at the top floor), and end bays of double-windows.

The building contains 207 condominium units. There is a small landscaped plaza to the west of the building, and the ground floor storefront on the west end is occupied by Avra Madison Estiatorio restaurant.