499 Park Avenue (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

335-foot, 27-story postmodern office building completed in 1984. Designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, it is clad in a curtain wall of dark-blue, almost black, glass with a number of angled corners. There is an entrance in the southwest corner, recessed in a 1-story cutaway lined with white stone and with a round column supporting the tower above. An inverted notch in the curtain wall extends up from the entrance to about the 7th floor.

The rest of the ground floor along the avenue has storefronts with two glass doors that are recessed and both flanked by angled glass walls. The main entrance is at the east end of the north facade on 59th Street, where the east end of the building is set far back and connects to the back of the office tower next door. There is an angled corner where the recessed areas begins. At the east end, the main entrance has a protruding revolving door and a set of traditional glass doors. The narrow, recessed connecting section has two small, angled setbacks at the 4th floor. At the northwest corner, the top seven floors are chamfered at the corner. The southwest corner is also chamfered above the 3rd floor.

The northern ground floor commercial space is occupied by Bernardaud chinaware store.