The Grand Madison Condominium (New York City, New York)

 condominiums, movie / film / TV location

164-foot, 12-story Renaissance-revival/Beaux-Arts residential building completed in 1907. Designed by Francis H. Kimball and Harry E. Donnell as a store, lofts and offices building, it was originally called the Brunswick Building, as it replaced the older Brunswick Hotel on this site. The lower level was occupied in the 1920's by Long Beach Estates, Park & Tilford Grocer, Raymond & Whitcomb Co., and Brentano's Books.

For a while it also operated as a warehouse. Midway through the 20th century, it became the home of showrooms for some 150 companies that sold giftware, china, flatware, home textiles, stationery and Christmas ornaments. Its formal address was 225 Fifth Avenue, but for some 50 years, it was colloquially known as The Gift Building. Its newest incarnation is a luxury condominium called the Grand Madison, with the conversion being completed in 2005. It has 188 condominium units.

The Fifth Avenue facade is 11 bays wide, with the north and south facades each spanning nine bays. On all three facades the 2-story base is clad in limestone, as is the transitional 3rd floor. The banded piers sit on squat bases, with elaborately-carved festoons at the 2nd floor. The ground floor is lined with storefront with large, modern plate-glass windows, most of which have angled, dark-blue
awnings. The main entrance is at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade, with floor glass doors framed in brass, covered by a sweeping glass-and-metal canopy. The far eastern bay on 26th Street has a historic secondary entrance at the top of a few grey granite steps, with a hooded surround decorated with circles, and an entablature on top supporting a balcony with wrought-iron railing. The two eastern bays on 27th Street have a roll-down metal gate and a set of recessed service doors up a set of steps.

Between the 2nd and 3rd floors are elaborately black cast-iron spandrels with cartouches; the 2nd floor has white cast-iron columns dividing the tripartite windows. The exception is the bay above the main entrance, which has a pair of short columns separating three smaller windows. The center bay on 27th Street has a service door and entry door to the Greely Square Station Post Office, topped by a carved panel and metal louvers; at the 2nd floor this bay has three smaller windows with keystones, fronted by a black wrought-iron balcony. The three western bays on 27th Street are projected forward. The base is capped by a dentiled stone cornice.

The transitional 3rd floor has paired windows in each bay, with round-edged stone surrounds and scrolled keystones. The piers between the bays are decorated by festoons, and the floor is topped by a band with a Greek-fret pattern. The only exception is the middle bay on 27th Street, which has three smaller windows and another wrought-iron balcony. These balconies continue up this bay on the floors above as well.

The upper floors are clad in red brick with splayed lintels and keystones, and with terra-cotta details toward the top. There are bracketed stone balconies with balustrades at the 8th floor, at alternating bays, and a continuous iron balcony at the 11th floor with foliated brackets and elaborate ironwork. At the bay with the stone balconies, there are also stone surround at the windows of the floor below, and larger surrounds at the two floors above; elaborate stone cornices surmount each of these bays at the 9th floor. These features also exist on the 26th Street side at the middle of the three projecting bays on the west end, and at the 2nd & 5th bays from the east end. At the corners of the projecting section, there are large, angled cartouches tucked just below the long, iron 10th-floor balcony. The 27th Street side has the stone balconies and surrounds at alternating bays.

The windows of the top floor are round-arched, with stone architraves. Cartouches decorate the capitals of each pier, and the corner piers also have long festoons hanging from the cartouches. Crowning all three facades is a brown pressed-metal roof cornice with dentils and egg-and-dart molding. The ground floor is occupied by a Current Bank branch, Mexicue restaurant, a Chase Bank branch, and the Greeley Square Station post office.

The exterior of the building was used as a filming location for White Collar S01 E13 "Front Man" where Neal Caffey flees after being kidnapped and S1E14. The Empire State Building and Museum of Sex can be seen in the background. It is used again in S02 E11 "Forging Bonds" when Neal and Peter are discussing forged bonds in front of the fictional First Unity Bank in a flashback scene. It is lastly used in S02 E14 "Payback" when Keller throws his phone in a garbage can.

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