National Distillers Building (New York City, New York)

 office building  Add category

315-foot, 26-story International-style office building completed in 1954. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons, it is clad in a curtain wall of anodized aluminum above a 2-story grey granite base. The west facade on the avenue is 10 bays wide, while the north facade on 40th Street has five bays, as does the south facade on 39th Street, although this elevation also has a lower extension at the east end. The bays each consist of four windows in stainless steel frames and spandrel panels that angle in at the centerpoint of the windows and out at the edges, producing a scalloped effect. The extension at the east end spans another 10 windows across. At the ground floor it has an entrance to the underground parking garage. The main entrance is in three of the center bays on the avenue, with recessed metal-and-glass doorways under scalloped metal canopies. The other bays have plate-glass storefronts on the ground floor and similar large show-windows on the 2nd floor. The far eastern bay on the north facade has a freight entrance with a metal roll-down gate.

All three main facades have a shallow setback above the 14th floor, with a deeper setback above the 16th, another shallow setback above the 20th, and another deep setback above the 22nd floor, narrowing the west facade to six bays across at the top four floors. The north and south bays have small roof sections, while the center rises up further as a mechanical penthouse. The extension at the east end of the south facade sets back above the 7th floor, and again above the 9th to the lower roof line. Above, the east facade of the main tower is faced in beige concrete and has window bands across the north and south ends that shift further inward as they encounter the setbacks. Inward of these windows bands are two columns of single-windows (running below the highest level of bands), and a narrow light well runs up the center of the elevation with additional single-windows. The ground floor is occupied by Polaris Cleaners, Park Avenue Tavern, a Metropolitan Commercial Bank branch, Flushing National Bank, and Pret A Manger restaurant.