The Ellington | apartment building, commercial building

 apartment building, commercial building

290-foot, 27-story postmodern residential building completed in 1987. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, the L-shaped tower is clad in dark-red brick. It has a large base with ribbed piers and large windows topped by a setback tower above the 14th floor. The north facade on 52nd Street spans nine bays; the west end bay and the 4th bay from the east are wider. The west facade on the avenue has six bays; the 2nd from the south is wider than the others. At the ground floor most of the bays have plate-glass storefronts. The main entrance is in the 4th bay from the west on 52nd Street, with a glass-and-metal revolving door. Stainless-steel panels top the openings at the ground-floor bays, and at the center three on the north facade (which are recessed), there are angled, corbeled brick panels extending out and up to meet the metal vents at the base of the 2nd floor.

The floors above the ground floor have bands of three windows in most of the bays, with four windows in the wider bays, all in rust-red metal framing. Metal vents fill the spandrels between each floor. There is a band of grey concrete at the 14th-floor setback, with two horizontal grooves at each bay.

The set-back upper tower has the same ribbed brick piers. There are projecting balconies with red metal railings at the end bays of the west facade, and also on the 2nd, 4th, & 7th bays of the north facade, reading east to west. The other bays on the north facade all have triple-windows, and between the end bays on the west facade there are two bays of triple-windows and one bay of single-windows. Another wide concrete band caps the upper tower, with a tall, red-brick water tower enclosure rising from the roof.

The west half of the south elevation, extending farther south, has end bays of triple-windows and a middle bay with double-windows next to a single-window on each floor. The east half of the south elevation, recessed back to create the L-shape, has four bays of triple-windows. The north part of the east elevation (up the the 14th-floor setback) has end bays with triple-windows, and there is also a double-window bay next to the south end bay. Above the setback at the north end, the south end bay of triple-windows continues up the upper tower to the roof line. The narrower south part of the east elevation, recessed far back, has two bays of triple-windows. The concrete band courses at the setback and roof line continue around the rear facades as well.

The building contains 216 apartment units. The ground floor is occupied by Jin's Cleaners, Sogo Nail & Spa, and Sally Beauty Supply.

www.ellingtonnyc.com