55 Central Park West (New York City, New York)

 interesting place, apartment building, movie / film / TV location

223-foot, 19-story Art-Deco cooperative-apartment building completed in 1930. Designed by Schwartz & Gross, it is noted for its rakish, fluted finials and its subtle ombré-shading of bricks, which range from dark red at the base to pale beige at the top. The ground floor is warm-hued stone, scaling to the 4th floor at the center. The piers have incised vertical ribs at the edges, and the outer bays have projecting, telescoping fins that grow in scale toward the middle bays, reaching two floors in height, and the three floors tall around the center bay, above the entrance. There are vertical ribs on the stone spandrels between floors at the middle bays from the 2nd-4th floors. The entrance is simple, in a recessed bay with angled side walls, with a glass-and-metal double-door. It is covered by a grey-brown metal marquee with metal vertical elements that mirror some of the façade elements. On the ground floor, there is a tripartite window to the left of the entrance, and a triple-window to the right, with a narrow single-window squeezed into a small bay farther north (this bay continues on the upper floors as well). Farther north, the next bay has two narrow triple-windows, the next bay has a black metal service door, and the end bay has a tripartite window. Farther south, there is a narrow triple-window and double-window in the same bay, followed by a narrow triple-window and Art-Deco glass door, and an end bay with a tripartite window.

The upper floors are not quite symmetrical. The three south bays have tripartite windows with variations in the metal framing; the end bay is narrower and lacks the metal vents seen below the windows at the other two bays. The three north bays are all different widths, with the inner bay being the widest, and the middle of the three the narrowest, with mostly narrow double-windows (although again there is wide variety in the spacing and layout of the pane framing); the other two bays have tripartite windows, also varying by floor. The lower portions of the brick spandrels between floors at these outer bays have simple patterns of projecting, vertical brick bands extending down to alternating lengths. The three main center bays have mainly tripartite windows, with the spandrels having the same design, but being composed of yellow-beige brick, and also mostly having air-conditioning vents cut into them. There is a narrow bay of small singe-windows between the two southern center bays, and another such bay to the north of the center bays.

There are a few shallow setbacks at the higher floors, beginning at the outer bays above the 15th floor, and at the center bays above the 17th. The narrow single-windows end at the 15th floor, with the two outer bays of the center group being wider at the 16th & 17th floors. All of the setbacks have protruding vertical design elements like those above the ground floor, also rising towards the center of the façade from 1-story to three stories in height. The top two floors have white terra-cotta cladding, and the front of the rooftop is crowned by a water tower enclosure of white terra-cotta with chamfered corners and more spires and finials.

The building is U-shaped around the deep light court that opens to the west. The north facade on 665h Street is clad in the same gradient hued brick at the main facade, and so is the east part of the south facade overlooking the adjoining church. The west part of the south facade, as well as the rear facades, are clad in regular beige brick.

The warm, yellowish-hued stone continues on the ground floor along 66th Street, divided into seven main bays with either tripartite windows or groupings of narrower window bays. There are also two narrow bays with single-windows on the upper floors -- one with a metal service door on the ground floor next to the two western bays, and one with no openings on the ground floor next to the east end bay. The pier and spandrel designs are like those on the east facade, with red brick at the outer bays and yellowish-beige brick at the spandrels of the center bays. The center bay if the widest. The outer two bays on each side (along with the narrow single-window bays) set back above the 15th floor, and the center bays set back above the 17th, with more projecting fins. The center bay changes to three separate window openings at both the 16th & 17th floors.

The front part of the south facade has a bay of paired, narrow single-windows flanked by wider single-windows, with spandrels, setbacks and fins matching the other facades. The rear, west section is slightly recessed, and has a bay of tripartite windows at its east end. The other bays (regular single-windows, two small bathroom windows, wide tripartite windows, and narrow tripartite windows, have shallow setbacks above the 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, & 17th floors, with corresponding setbacks on the south wing of the west facade. The west facade of the north wing has three bays of single-windows with small bathroom windows just to the left of the south bay.

The building contains 109 apartments. Its residents have included musician Rudy Vallee and, more recently, designer Donna Karan and actress Marsha Mason. Since the 1980s, the penthouse has been owned by a series of "the rich and famous" including Calvin Klein, David Geffen, and Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols, and last changed hands for a sale price of $8.9 million.

Known as "The Ghostbusters Building" or "Spook Central", this building was the home of Dana Barrett (and Louis Tully) in the 1984 film "Ghostbusters". In the movie, it was portrayed much taller and with the rooftop temple.

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