Grand Millennium Condominiums (New York City, New York)

 hotel, condominiums

331-foot, 32-story modernist residential building completed in 1996. Designed by Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron, and Gary Handel & Associates, it consists of a residential tower set back on a 6-story base. This roughly L-shaped base is actually the re-clad structure of the previous building on this lot, the 1963 Empire Building, designed by Hyman Isaac Feldman. The lower two floors have commercial space, and the top four floors of the base house hotel units known as the Phillips Club. The units are designed for "extended stay" use and proved so successful in the tight hotel market of 1997 in the city that the developers decided to double the number of units to 192 by expanding into the former Chinese Mission to the United Nations Building, a 9-story structure next door on West 66th Street. The developers built a new mission for the Chinese on First Avenue and 35th Street.

The base is clad in grey metal, glass, and brick in beige and two shades of grey, above a ground floor of grey granite. The ground floor along Broadway is divided into four bays, with the residential entrance in the 2nd bay from the north, and large storefronts in the other three. The north storefront has a surround of rough-faced grey granite around the entry, with glass double-doors and side windows below transoms; there is a large plate-glass display-window to the north, and a narrower one to the south, next to a small, square display-window. The main entrance is framed in lighter granite, with a revolving door and a traditional glass door; a small stainless-steel canopy covers the doors. The storefront in the next bay has glass doors at the center, with two sets of plate-glass display-windows to the south and another to the north, next to a secondary glass door. The south storefront has a break in the granite cladding, as the glass-and-metal cladding from the 2nd floor extends down to the sidewalk, with a black metal band between the two levels. The rest of the ground floor along Broadway is capped by a grey metal band course.

The 2nd floor is divided into 10 bays by metal piers visible behind the glass curtain wall; the exception above the center of the ground-floor entrance, where a projecting, round metal column separates the bays on either side, which are very slightly recessed from the rest of the facade. The 2nd floor is topped by a band of brick, with another brick band at the top of the base. The 3rd-6th floors are similar to the 2nd, with glass-and-metal curtain wall that has projecting, horizontal metal fins at the top and bottom of each spandrel.

On the north facade on 67th Street the ground-floor storefront continues from Broadway for three bays of display-windows. Farther west there are three small, square display-windows, and a metal service door. The west end has two freight entrances with roll-down metal gates and a final service door. The tall 2nd floor has five bays of large windows at the east, surrounded by brick cladding, and has no openings at the west end. The upper floors of the base have seven bays, most with four windows in metal framing (the west end bay has six - the end pane being narrower), and the east end bay has a continuation of the curtain wall from the east facade.

The south facade on 66th Street has one bay of curtain wall at the two lower floors on the east end. The next four bays have wide display-windows framed by lighter-grey granite. Bands of darker granite runs below and above to the west, where the rest of the ground floor is clad in the darker stone. The upper floors of the base end before this section, with the 2nd floor continuing for a bay of brick cladding with no openings (and a metal service door at the ground floor). The 2nd floor is topped by a metal railing here, with mechanical equipment on its roof. At the far west end the ground floor continues for a 1-story extension that has the entrance to the hotel portion of the building, shared with the building to the west. The entrance in this connecting section has a revolving door and traditional glass door below a stainless-steel canopy. The upper floors of the base on the south facade have five bays, with the curtain wall wrapping around to the east bay. The other bays have bands of four windows; the 2nd bay from the east is slightly recessed and has metal spandrels instead of brick.

The tower portion is set back on the north, east, and south sides. Its most interesting side is the south, where the curtain wall of silver glass and metal spandrels is gently rounded. At the west half of this curve, there are recessed balconies fronted by glass railings. A short, brick-clad, west-facing wall connects to the farther set-back west part of the south wing. It consists of a wider section of curtain wall with six panes and white metal framing, and a narrower west end section, set slightly farther back, with two panes. The curtain wall continues on the south-facing wall of the north wing of the tower, extending west along 67th Street.

The east facade of the tower along Broadway is divided into two sections by a vertical band of brick about a third of the way from the north. The wider south section has narrow brick spandrels between floors, and every third pane has a black metal vent at its base, for a total of eight. The north section has grey metal spandrels, and three more vents per floor. This section is slightly recessed from the south section, and the north edge of the brick divider has 1-pane-wide metal fins projecting out. The south end sets back above the 30th floor, where the vertical brick divider ends. Above, the south section has five bays at the top two floors, framed by rounded metal piers.

The north facade of the tower has a short curtain wall section at both ends, with the center section having brick cladding with six bays of asymmetrical double-windows; the east panes are narrower but extend lower, while the west panes have brick spandrels with black metal vents. The middle bays extend slightly further than the curtain wall end sections. The west facade of the north wing is brick with one pane of curtain wall cladding at the front edge, wrapping around from the north. Farther back are multiple bays of wide windows, with more at the top seven floors. The west facade of the south wing is mostly curtain wall, with a narrow section of brick where it intersects with the north wing; this area has one bay of single-windows that continues above the main roof line to a mechanical bulkhead and water tower housing.

The building contains 205 condominium units. The ground floor is occupied by Pottery Barn, Zara clothing store, and Raymour & Flanigan Furniture, which also occupies almost the entire 2nd floor.