55 Park Avenue (New York City, New York)

 apartment building  Add category

164-foot, 16-story Neo-Renaissance cooperative-apartment building completed in 1923. Designed by David S. Lang, it is clad in brown brick above a 4-story limestone base, rusticated above the ground floor. The centered entrance has a wood-and-glass door flanked by pilasters with floral carvings, and spiral moldings at the inner edges, and is covered by a rounded, green canvas canopy extending out over the sidewalk. To the right are two windows, extending to the ground, with iron grilles and decorative blocks at the upper corners. To the left is another window, and a secondary entrance that matches the windows, with an iron gate.

The upper floors have six bays of narrow double-windows with black iron mullions, the end bays spaced farther apart. The 4th floor is underlined by a dentiled string course and has round-arched, paired windows framed by Corinthian pillars. The base is capped by a band course with a row of scrolled brackets along the underside, alternating with leafy medallions and floral panels.

Above the base, the middle four bays are just slightly recessed, with thin, projecting brick piers between them. The brick spandrels panels between floors at these bays are each decorated with a stone diamond shape outlined in brick. The four middle bays are topped by trios of corbelled brick arches at the 12th floor, and the 13th floor is underlined by a thin dentil course. This floor is topped by a modillioned stone band course, and at the 14th-15th floors the four middle bays are framed by 2-story stone piers carved with ornament, the center one wider. The stone spandrels panels between these floors are ornately carved at the middle bays, and each of the four bays is topped by a brick arch at the 15th floor. A scalloped brick cornice marks the main roof line, with a penthouse level set back above it.

The north and south side elevations are also brick, without ornament. They have a bay of single-windows near the front, with some smaller windows farther back on the north facade. The south facade is recessed at its eastern half, with beige brick and two windows bays framing a bay of smaller bathroom windows. The building was converted to a co-op in 1985, with 32 apartments.