485 Park Avenue

 cooperative, apartment building

185-foot, 14-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1922. Designed by Dwight P. Robinson, it is clad in beige brick above a 3-story limestone base and beige granite water table. The entrance is at the center of the west facade on the avenue, with bronze-and-glass double-doors below an arched green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. Flanking the entry are two small, narrow windows, and above the canopy is a stone cornice surmounted by a panel with a central cartouche. To the south is a grond-floor storefront with a glass door and a single-window, both framed in bronze and with small, green canvas clamshell awnings. Another storefront is to the north, but with a wider window in the northernmost bay, and with sloped instead of clamshell awnings.

The floors above the ground floor are organized into a center bay of three single-windows, and end bays of paired windows, which are slightly wider than those in the middle. They all have simple stone sills and black metal framing. Capping the base is a stone band course with balustrades below each 4th-floor window; the balustrade at the center window is projected slightly forward, supported by a pair of stone brackets.

The upper floors have brick quoins at the edges, and the 4th-floor windows have full stone surrounds. Some of the windows have metal air-conditioning vents cut below them. At the 12th floor, the middle bay is spanned by a stone balcony carried on four brackets, and has a stone balustrade. There is a set of French doors opening onto this balcony, and a small copper roof over this bay. A band course similar to the one capping the base sets off the 13th floor, but without the balusters at the middle bay. This bay has a band of four windows at the 13th & 14th floors, divided by metal mullions. There are subtle brick surrounds at the windows of these two floors, and paneled brick spandrels between them. The top floor's outer-bay surrounds are round-arched with keystones at the top.

The south facade on 58th Street has paired windows at the end bays, two center bays of paired windows, and an intermediate between the end bays and center bays, both with single-windows. There is also a bay of small, narrow bathroom windows directly to the east of the eastern center bay, ending at the 11th floor. The ground floor has small show-windows at the west end bay and the western single-bay, with a small, narrow window next to the single-window. The west-center bay has a bronze service door and a window, while the other one has paired windows above the water table, which grows taller toward the east due to the slope of the site. The east single-bay has a metal service door flanked by a pair of small, narrow windows, and the east end bay has paired windows. All of the upper floors match the design features of the west facade, except that at the top two floors, the center bays remain separate paired windows instead of 4-window bands. There is also a cartouche at the underside of the balcony at the 12th floor.

Both main facades are crowned by a beige stone roof cornice with modillions and dentils. The short front edge of the eastern elevation that is exposed is also clad in brick above the 6th floor (the lower floors are white stucco), and has a bay of single-windows at the very front, beginning at the 7th floor, and joined by a second window farther bay at the 12th-14th floors. The north elevation is brown brick, with a bay of double-windows that splits into paired windows at the 12th-14th floors. Farther back is another bay covered by a black metal fire escape.

The building was converted to a cooperative in 1945, with only 23 apartments. The ground floor retail space is occupied by Christopher Walling jewelry, and Maurice Badler jewelry.