711 Third Avenue

 office building, high-rise, 1955_construction, Modern (architecture)

222-foot, 20-story early-modern office building completed in 1955 for William Kaufman. Designed by William Lescaze & Associates, it has a large 6-story base clad in white glazed brick, and a set-back upper tower of grey brick. The ground floor is lined with modernized stainless-steel and glass storefronts along the avenue, and partway back on the north and south facades. The east end of the north facade on 45th Street has a loading dock, and on 44th Street, where the base is longer, there is (from west to east) a recessed metal service bay, a wall of polished black granite, and two entrance/exits to the underground parking garage. The other floors of the base consist of ribbon bands of windows with light-grey metal mullions. A white metal-and-glass railing surrounds the 6th-floor setback.

The 7th floor has another, smaller setback on the north and south facades, where it merges in with the upper tower. The upper floors have similar ribbon bands of windows, but with darker grey mullions. The north and south facades are divided into five bays by uninterrupted vertical piers of grey brick. There is a small white-brick shaft attached to the rear, east facade, just to the south of center, with shorter bands of windows on either side.

The ground floor is occupied by New York Mutual Trading Japanese Culinary Center, a Banco Santander branch, and a Duane-Reade pharmacy. In 1956, the Abstract Expressionist painter, Hans Hofmann, created a vibrant wall-size mosaic on the elevator core of the lobby, which remains today.

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