Excelsior Apartments

 commercial, skyscraper, cooperative, apartment building, 1967_construction, Modern (architecture)

482-foot, 47-story modernist cooperative-apartment/office building completed in 1967. Designed by Philip Birnbaum & Associates, it is clad in glazed white brick. It was the city’s tallest residential tower when it was built and a precursor of many major mixed-use buildings as its lower floors contain offices.

The ground floor is clad in black granite on the west facade on 2nd Avenue, lined with storefronts along its six bays. The 3rd bay from the north has an entrance/exit to the underground parking garage. There is a wide band of granite at the base of the 2nd floor, and the 2nd & 3rd floors both have a pair of triple-windows in each bay. At the north four bays, the 4th floor has another band of windows, topped by a metal band, but the rest of the facade sets back above the 3rd floor, back to the main bulk of the tower. At the south end of the west facade, there is another bay set far back behind a small, landscaped corner plaza, marking the beginning of the main building slab.

The main south facade on 57th Street has six bays, with glass walls at the ground floor recessed between black granite piers. The main entrance is in the middle two bays, with glass doors and a black metal and bronze canopy. To the left is the 3-story commercial west wing (four floors at its north end), and to the right is the set-back east wing, four bays wide (although the east end bay terminates above the 4th floor). Two of these bays at the ground floor have additional parking garage entrances and exits.

The six western bays of the south facade (those projecting farther south) each have a triple-window at the 2nd-4th floors between projecting brick piers; the windows on the 4th floor are recessed and have black metal lintels at their bases. Above, the residential floors begin, with tripartite windows in each bay, and projecting concrete balconies at the end bays, angled slightly outward toward the middle of each balcony, with glass-and-metal railings. These extend all the way up to the roof line. The other bays have small slit vents in the brick spandrels between floors. The three set-back eastern bays of the south facade have the same design, with the balconies in the center bay. The east-facing side wall of the south wing has two bays; they have the same windows at the lower floors, but at the residential floors the southern bay has tripartite windows while the north bay has three single-windows up to the 26th floor, where the outer two change to tripartite windows for the top floors.

The west facade on the avenue (above the base) has a recessed center section wide balconies spanning two bays of triple-windows; the balconies are again angled slightly outward toward the center and have glass-and-metal railings. To either side is a bay with a very wide tripartite window. The north and south ends flanking the recessed center section both have a bay of square, paired windows, framed together by slightly-projecting piers. The narrow south- and north-facing sidewalls created by the recessed middle section both have a bay of double-windows and a bay of single-windows.

The north facade on 58th Street continues the 4-story base, with a storefront at the west end. The rest of the brick-clad ground floor has a variety of service doors, loading docks, and vents. The 2nd & 3rd floors have eight bays with paired triple-windows, with the glass 4th floor extending over from the west along the first five bays. There is a mechanical screen at the east end on the 4th floor. Set back above the base, the residential floors of the tower mirror those on the south side.

On the east elevation, the ground floor is obscured behind a red-brick retaining wall for the 2-block-long sloping roadway up to the Queensboro Bridge. This older brick wall steps upward toward the north as it follows the slope of the street. The 2nd & 3rd floors match those on the other facades, except the piers don't project; it has six bays of paired triple-windows. The 4th-floor metal screen continues at the north end, and the south end has a brick-clad mechanical bulkhead at the 4th floor. The residential floors, again set back from the base, have a projecting central (east) wing with three bays of single-windows (with the middle bay splitting into two single-windows at the 27th floor and above. The far set-back south part of the east facade was already discussed, and the north-part mirrors it, with a bay of triple-windows and three single-windows (the outer two merging into triple-windows above the 26th floor).

The building contains 371 apartments. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by Euro Concepts Kitchen Design Studio, Pianeta Legno Floors, and European Wax Center.