Parc Vendome South Condominium (New York City, New York)

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157-foot, 12-story Neo-classical residential building completed in 1931 for Henry Mandel. Designed by Farrar & Watmough, it is the southern component of the Park Vendome complex. Like the taller north building, the southern one is treated as two separate buildings, with different addresses and entrances, although they are structurally one building. A large, landscaped garden separates the north and south buildings.

All the buildings have similar buff-brick façades above the 2-story limestone base. While the north building's facade along 57th Street is lined with storefronts, the south building's 56th Street facade has matching ground and 2nd floor, except for where there are doors, and the presence of iron grilles on the windows. The middle and end sections of the south facade are recessed. There are five single-windows in the end sections, and two groups of five in the middle section (separated at each floor by a blind opening in the middle (with brick fill on the upper floors). On the ground floor, the east group of five windows in the middle section is interrupted by a pair of metal service doors replacing the western two windows; and the eastern window is smaller than the rest.

The wide, non-recessed sections both have a central entrance with recessed glass double-doors. The entrances are framed by a banded stone molding and cornice, and there are rounded, green canvas canopies extending out over the sidewalk. Light fixtures are mounted on the wall flanking the entrance. Above the cornice are two small paired windows at the 2nd floor. On either side of the entrances are two single-windows, smaller on the ground floor. At the west entrance (No. 353) the window to the immediate right of the entrance is replaced by a metal service door, and at the east entrance (No. 333) the second opening left of the doors has been filled in. On either side of the entrance sections, there are wide sections consisting of four windows flanked by narrow bays with single-windows; the narrow bays have horizontal banding. At the westernmost of these sections, the two middle windows on the ground floor are replaced by a segmental-arched double-door framed in stone quoins, below a decorative molding and ball finial. A metal service doors also replaces the east ground-floor window in the section to the east of the entrance at No. 353. Like the north building, the base is capped by a modillioned band course. The narrow side walls created by the recessed sections each have a single-window per floor.

The large mass of the building is modulated on the upper floors with alternating fenestration patterns separated by brick quoins. The upper floors generally follow the same fenestration pattern established on the 2nd floor, and the brick quoins continue the framing of the narrow bays. The windows (all multi-paned) have brick sills, and there are a number of protruding air-conditioning units dotting the facade. At the 3rd floor, the narrow bays have quoined stone surrounds at the windows, topped by splayed keystones and triangular pediments.

The 9th floor is topped by a modillioned cornice, with a setback at the center section and the middle of the wide sections with the main entrances. The quoined window surround with pediments return at the narrow bays of the 10th floor, there are patterned brick spandrels between the 10th & 11th floors in the other bays, and the brick quoins frame additional bays as well. The 11th floor is topped by a dentiled cornice topped by balusters, with the 12th floor set back behind. Above the two main entrances there are tall masonry towers similar to those on the north building, with a large round-arched window opening flanked by smaller windows, crowned by tall copper mansard roofs with some lion-like head gargoyles on the sides of the tall rooftop water tank enclosures.

The east facade is parged brick with no openings on the lower floors. There is no ornament until above the first setback, where quoins begin at the edges and the top floors have three windows. The west facade is parged up to the 8th floor, with two windows on the 8th & 9th floors, and one on the 7th. There are three windows above the setback at the 9th floor.

The Parc Vendome complex was converted from rental apartments to condominiums in 1983, with about 560 units.

www.parcvendomerealty.com/