477 Madison Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building, modernism, commercial building

276-foot, 24-story early-modernist office building completed in 1953. Designed by Kahn & Jacobs, it is clad in white brick above a grey granite ground floor. The west facade on the avenue is five bays wide, with the main entrance in the 2nd bay from the north (with two sets of paired glass doors framed in steel), and the south facade on 51st Street spans seven bays. The other bays on the avenue have glass-and-metal storefronts, as does the westernmost bay on 51st Street. The other bays on the south facade have grey granite infill, except for the easternmost bay, which has a loading dock and service entrance; the next bay to the west is filled with a darker grey granite and has some metal vents.

On the upper floors each bay has a band of four windows in aluminum framing (except for the two eastern bay on the south facade, which have five window panes each). A series of setbacks at every other floor begins above the 10th floor, except at the east end of the building, where the two eastern bays set back lower - above the 6th floor. Above the 6th floor, this eastern section has only three windows in one of the bays, and the end bay has a band of five windows next to a single-window. On the north section of the west facade, there is no set back above the 12th floor; instead the 2nd from northernmost bay narrows the three windows, and then narrows again to two windows above the 14th-floor setback, and merging into a single bay of five windows above the 18th-floor setback. The top floor is a mechanical floor, with metal vents along both main facades.