Two Columbus Avenue | skyscraper, condominium, 1998_construction

 skyscraper, condominium, 1998_construction

421-foot, 41-story modernist residential building completed in 1998. Designed by Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron and Buck/Cane Architects, it is clad in buff-colored brick, grey metal, and glass. The developers acquired the site and air rights from the parish of St. Paul the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, a neighbor, at an auction when they were selected over nine other bidders. The building has a limestone-and-grey-granite base that complements that of the church. The north side of the tower is also setback at the 16th floor to respect the height of the church.

At the ground floor some of the piers are brick and some are grey granite. The main entrance is near the west end on 59th Street, with stainless-steel-and-glass doors below a stainless-steel lintel that projects slightly out in the center and is fronted by an upward-slanting, opaque pale-green glass canopy. To the right are two stainless-steel service doors, and three storefront bays at the corner; the avenue side of the ground floor has four more storefront bays and a recessed bay of service door at the north end. The top of the ground floor has a regular pattern of projecting bricks, between two thin bands of grey granite also seen near the tops of the piers (but between white limestone bands), which have simple, modern light fixtures. The storefront bays have stainless-steel lintels surmounted by horizontal metal louvers at the tops.

The two western bays on 59th Street are set back above the ground floor, as are the two northern bays on the avenue; the end bays are set back farther - until the 7th floor on the south facade, where the adjoining bay also sets back again to match. The west end bay on the south facade has tripartite windows up to the setback and then paired double-windows from the 7th floor; the next bay over has 5-pane windows (in a narrow-wide-narrow-wide-narrow pattern) up to the setback, and then double-windows on the left and single-windows on the pattern, a pattern that reverses at the 14th floor. The other five bays on the south facade are almost symmetrical, with a center bay of tripartite windows flanked by double-windows and and west bay with paired double-windows, and an east end bay of 5-panes (in a wide-narrow-wide-narrow-wide pattern). All of the bays except for the eastern double-window bay have metal air-conditioning vents below the windows, and the end bays of the non-recessed section wrap around the corners. The five main bays all set back above the 14th floor, but not as far back as the western bays. Above this setback, there are double-windows in the center, flanked by single-windows, and a west end bay of two wide panes with narrow end bays (wrapping around the corner) and an east end bay of tripartite windows, also wrapping around the corner.

On the east facade, the three south bays have (from south to north) 5-pane windows, a double-window, and a 4-pane window, wrapping around the corner of the setback bay to the north. This bay has tripartite windows (also wrapping around the corner), and the north end bay has tripartite windows as well. The three south bays (and the bay next to the north end bay) set back above the 14th floor, with all five bays then rising flush to the roof line. Above the setback the center bay has double-windows, the next two have tripartite windows, and the south end bay has double-windows, while the north has tripartite windows, both wrapping around the corners.

On the north facade, rising above the church, the east end has tripartite windows that wrap around from the east side, with a bay of paired single-windows to its right. The west half of this facade projects to the north, and has a curtain wall of glass with grey metal spandrels and mullions. The curtain wall extends around the projecting section and continues onto the north half of the west facade. The south half has a bay of single-windows, a bay of double-windows, and an end bay of single-window that wraps around from the south facade. The curtain wall extends down on the west facade to the 14th floor, below which there are instead two bays of double-windows, and the single-window bay to the south also changes to double-windows.

The building contains 133 condominium units. The ground floor storefronts are occupied by a Starbucks Coffee, Central Park Cleaners, and Columbus Circle Veterinary Hospital.