Park Place Tower (New York City, New York)

 condominiums, 1895_construction

292-foot, 23-story Romanesque-revival residential building completed in 1895 as an office building. Designed by R. H. Robertson, it was originally known as the American Tract Society Building, and was the first building in New York City and the second in the world to reach a height of 20 regular floors. It is also the world's oldest surviving 20-story building.

The building is U-shaped, with a light court facing the adjoining Morse Building. The two principal street facades, each five bays wide, are clad in rusticated grey Westerly (R.I.) granite on the 5-story base, and grey Haverstraw (N.Y.) Roman brick and buff-colored terra-cotta on the upper floors.

The American Tract Society moved out of the building in 1914, and lower portion was leased to the publishers of the New York Sun from 1914 to 1919. Floor space to accommodate the newspaper was constructed in the light court on the 2nd through 5th stories in 1914-15 under architect Walter S. Timmis. In 1955, then owner Nassauco, Inc., installed the current flat marble veneer surround at the main entrance. The building was purchased in August 1967 by Pace College, which was acquiring a number of historic properties in the vicinity. After a proposal to
demolish them for a large office tower fell through, Pace University sold this property in 1982. Renamed Park Place Tower, the building was converted to residential condominiums, with 125 units.

The building was constructed with a steel skeletal frame and is partially of curtain-wall construction above the 5th floor on the street facades and above the 13th floor on the secondary facades. The 5-story base is clad in rusticated granite on the principal facades, which are similar in articulation. The base is divided into two horizontal sections. The 1st and 2nd floors have a large round arch in each bay (except for the main
entrance on Nassau Street), within which is rectangular fenestration on the ground floor, a stone spandrel panel, and a second-story window flanked by colonnettes and sidelights.

This lower section is capped by a band course ornamented with a fret motif. The upper section (3rd-5th floors) has colossal paired arches in each bay with a smooth-faced granite pier with stylized capitals, decorative spandrels, and 5th-floor wrought-iron grilles. Air conditioning vents have been inserted into the spandrels above the 3rd floor on the Spruce Street facade and a portion of the Nassau Street facade. This section is capped by a decorative band course.

The main entrance on Nassau Street currently has on-historic anodized aluminum and glass doors with sidelights and transom. Due to the fact that the site slopes to the east, the basement level is visible on the Spruce Street side. The midsection of the two principal facades, clad in brick and terra-cotta, is divided horizontally into three 4-story sections that are similar in articulation. Each bay has paired windows. The 1st floor of each section is simply articulated, flanked above and below by band courses (consisting of a stone upper band and terra-cotta molding); the sixth-story windows have decorative surrounds. Each bay of the upper three stories of each section has a colossal molded surround with animal head corbels, decorative spandrels, and a bracket/capital on the central pier. The 18th story functions as the building's major terminating cornice on the western, and western portion of the northern, facades; large scroll brackets, alternately single or paired, flank single windows and support a decorative entablature.

The upper section consists of two full stories, clad in brick and terra cotta, pierced by rectangular windows and having decorative spandrels. This was originally surmounted by a pierced parapet, but it was replaced later with a solid brick one in 1999. The parapet on the eastern half of the northern facade is ornamented by animal heads. On the western half of the building, these stories have a superimposed 3-story arcade that is open at the top story. The arcade is surmounted by a copper cornice, with an egg-and-dart motif and animal heads, that flares at the corners above the caryatids.

The 3-story hipped roof tower rises through the open top story of the arcade. There are rectangular windows on the 21st and 22nd floors; the walls, originally clad in tile, have been parged. The roof, originally also clad in vitrified tile but now covered in asphalt shingles, has round-arched copper dormers on the 23rd floor and occuli with arched copper hoods above.

The east elevation, clad in red brick, now mostly painted and parged, is unarticulated. The lower portion consists of a party wall of an adjacent five-story building that has been demolished. The rest of the elevation has a shallow L-shaped plan. The northern portion has three bays of windows at the lot line, while the majority of the elevation is recessed with continuous horizontal window groupings interrupted by piers.

The ground floor is occupied by a Denny's restaurant, and Thread Eyebrow Salon.