Columbus Park Tower

 apartment building  Add category

300-foot, 26-story cooperative-apartment building completed in 1967. Designed by Ballard, Todd & Snibbe, the tower is clad in brown brick above a 1-story base of dark-brown brick capped by a concrete coping. There are metal-and-glass storefronts on the base's east side along the avenue. The middle section has a projecting, semi-enclsoed outdoor seating area with a sloped metal roof, and the south section also projecting out from the rest of the base and is designed to resemble a country house, with blue and white wooden siding, an overhanging modillioned cornice, a white picket fence, and a sloped, shingled roof with three small, peaked dormers facing the avenue, and another three on the south side facing 93rd Street. At the west end of the base on 93rd Street is a long ramp down to the underground parking garage. The north end of the base, on 94th Street, has no openings except for a long, very narrow and high-set band of vertical slits in the brick wall, and then the main building entrance at the west end, very deeply recessed with a sliding glass door. A concrete canopy extends out over the entry to the doorway. To the west of the base is an outdoor garden area, enclosed by a white metal gate and dark-brown brick wall with a pattern of narrow cutouts, creating a decorative effect.

The slab tower rises toward the east part of the base. The 2nd floor is set back from the base and slightly recessed with an open frame-like design, making the tower above seem to almost float above the base. The east facade is visually organized into three sections, the center one widest, fronted by long, projecting balconies with beige cast-stone front walls and metal railings at the ends. The center balcony is split by narrow dividers into three sections to serve three different apartments. The outer balconies are both split into two halves. Each balcony is flanked by a single-window bay, and between the inner single-window bays are two columns of metal air-conditioning vents. At the top two floors the middle balcony is split into two smaller ones, with a space in the middle. A broad concrete band marks the roof line, projecting out over the east side to cover all of the balconies below.

The west facade has a windowless elevator core projecting partially from the rest of the facade and splitting it in two, placed slightly north of center. This core extends past the roof line and terminates as an enclosure for the rooftop water tank. To either side are wide, projecting balconies that extend almost to the north and south ends; these are fully enclosed by metal railings, without stone front walls. At each end is a bay of single-windows.

The thin north and south facades both have three bays of single-windows, the eastern two spaced closer together. The building contains 163 apartments. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by New Amsterdam Burger Bar, Agave restaurant, Columbus Park Shoe Repair, Spa Boutique, Mila Cafe, and Crystal Cleaners.