CitySpire Center (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, condominiums, Moorish Revival (architecture), postmodern (architecture)

814-foot, 75-story Postmodern multi-use building completed in 1987. Designed by Helmut Jahn, it is the tallest mixed-use skyscraper in the city. Its design somewhat echoes the Moorish Revival elements of the New York City Center next door. The bottom 23 floors of the tower are for commercial office use and above it are luxury condominiums, which increase in size the higher they are. CitySpire Center is part of a cluster of four tall towers along with the Carnegie Hall Tower (which mimics the design of its famous namesake concert hall), the Metropolitan Tower and One57.

The building assumes an unusual octagonal shape as it rises above the base, with shorter streamlined wings extending on the west and east sides, the whole rising in triple setbacks, ending in a domed top. In its first years it was known for emitting a high-pitched whistle from the dome area that could be heard from ten blocks away on windy days. The noise was eventually silenced by removing some of the louvers in the cooling tower.

The 2-story base is clad in red granite, with narrow light-grey granite piers separating the bays, and also with light-grey granite horizontal bands lining the top and bottom of the 2nd floor. The taller ground floor has tall single-windows with bronze frames and chamfered corners at the tops. There are four such bays at the east end followed by three triple-width and double-height, recessed entrance bays with chamfered upper corners. The western of these bays has the entrance to the offices, the middle bay has the residential entrance, and the east bay has the north entrance of the midblock pedestrian passage through to 55th Street. This public arcade was completed on September 15, 1997, after 12 years since being approved by city officials, completing a network of public mid-block walkways spanning from West 51st to West 57th streets. All three entrances have bronze-framed glass doors with revolving doors in the center. A 3-sided metal-and-frosted glass canopy extends out from the middle bay. Four more regular bays follow to the west of the entrance bays, and at the west end is a triple-wide loading dock and a triple-wide entrance/exit to the underground parking garage, also with chamfered upper corners. The 2nd floor has smaller, bronze-framed single-windows in each bay (except at the entrance bays, which extend up through the 2nd floor).

Above the base the tower is clad in light-grey granite and glass, and has dark-grey metal framing with a slight green tint above and below the windows. There are double-windows in each bay. The nine center bays set back above the 4th floor, with the four bays to the east, and the 10 bays along the longer west section setting back above the 6th floor. The inner edge of the 5th & 6th floors angle back to the main facade above the 4th floor. From these lower floors, the tower rises centered above the entrances, with five full bays of double-windows in the middle section, flanked by half bays of single-windows, and angled end bays of double-windows setting back to the side wings. In contrast to the middle section, the wings are more horizontally defined, with bands of glass and horizontal stone spandrels instead of vertical piers. The wings extend out for seven window panes, ending in 3-pane angled sections. On the west side, there is an additional end section of four more window panes that also ends in another 3-pane angled section at the far west end.

The 24th & 25th floors are mechanical, with black metal vents at the wings (although there are still glass panes at the middle section). This marks the first setback of the wings, with the middle section narrowing above to five double-windows bays (the half-bays end). The next setback is above the 46th floor, where there is a single level of mechanical vents. The far west end of the wing drops off here, and the middle section narrows again to three full bays and two half-bays. The next setback, again with a mechanical level, is above the 62nd floor, where the wings fully terminate and the middle section narrows to three full bays of double-windows. The angled sections bridging the wings to the middle section grow wider at each setback, from one to two to three bays of double-windows, so that the building takes on a completely octagonal form at the top.

At the 70th floor there begins a series of shallow setbacks around the full perimeter of the octagon, with railings lining the terraces created by the setbacks. The stone cladding terminates at the 74th level, where a 2-story green metal dome with projecting silver metal fins caps the tower.

The building contains 338 condominiums. The retail space at the east end of the north facade is occupied by Taim restaurant, and at the west end by Carnegie Club bar.