Galaxy 51 Apartments

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155-foot, 13-story Beaux-Arts cooperative-apartment building completed in 1905. Designed by Frederick C. Browne, it opened as the Hotel Colonial. The two main facades are clad in red brick and cream-colored terra-cotta above a 2-story base of thickly-banded limestone with a grey granite water table. The southwest corner is rounded for the full height of the building.

A large, 2-story portico frames the main residential entrance at the east end of the south facade on 81st Street. Large granite blocks form the bases for two pairs of limestone Doric columns that frame the entry and the bay of windows on either side. The four columns carry a sturdy entablature at the top of the 2nd floor, capped by a dentiled cornice. Recessed between the middle two columns are glass-and-bronze double-doors and a transom; covering them and extending out from the outer edges of these two columns is a suspended canopy of white metal (adorned with rosettes) with a lower section of green fabric. A large, carved wreath is located above the doorway at the 2nd floor. The other two bays have double-windows with transoms at both floors. To the left of the entry portico are four bays with round-arches at the 2nd floor, topped by scrolled keystones. The first bay is set apart from the other three by an additional bay with small paired windows (and no openings at the ground floor). The three west bays have plate-glass show-windows at the ground floor, topped by wrought-iron grilles, while the eastern bay has a set of black metal service doors topped by a taller grille. At the rounded corner, the ground floor has an entrance into the commercial space at the corner, with metal-and-glass double-doors set in a stone molding and framed by thin brackets with a small cornice. The corner bay has a single-window at each of the upper floors.

The south half of the west facade on the avenue has a storefront with five plate-glass windows in a band, below a continuous iron grille. The north half has a 2-bay restaurant storefront, and a 1-bay storefront at the north end. The upper floors on the west elevation have a center bay of double-windows, followed on either side by a single-window bay and two paired window bays (except at the 2nd floor, where double-windows replaced the paired windows). On the south facade, the upper floors have smaller paired windows in the center bay, followed by narrow double-windows, and two bays of slightly-wider double-windows at each end, some with wider mullions.

The 3rd floor is transitional, with red brick overlaid by limestone banding, and a band course across the top. The larger windows have splayed stone lintels with keystones, and the small windows have splayed beige brick lintels. Above the 3rd floor the rounded corner bay is layered in terra-cotta quoins, and the windows have splayed terra-cotta lintels and keystones, and all of the other upper-floor windows have splayed, beige brick lintels with keystones. The edges of both facades are also lined with quoins. The west facade has projecting stone balconies on squat, scrolled brackets fronting the next-to-end bays at the 8th floor, and the middle three bays at the 9th floor, while the south facade has balconies fronting the outer two bays at the 8th floor and the center three bays at the 9th floor.

The 11th & 12th floors are set off by a string course, and the window bays are lined by 2-story terra-cotta surrounds and have terra-cotta spandrels. Large cartouches adorn some of the brick piers, and the terra-cotta mullions between the paired windows on the west facade have hanging pendants. Additionally, the center bay on the south facade has a horizontal terra-cotta panel in place of windows at the center bay that features a large garland.

The east elevation is also clad in red brick, and has a short return of the quoins at the front edge, where there is a bay of single-windows. Other single- and double-window bays are seen farther back. The north facade is clad in a browner brick and has a bay of single-windows at both edges, with other bays in the middle. There is a low penthouse level set back on the roof, wrapped around an interior light well. An original roof cornice has been removed.

The building was converted to a co-op in 1979, with 112 apartments. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by a Citibank branch, About Coffee, Q Florist, and Rose Wine & Liquor.