Lex Apartments

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272-foot, 26-story postmodern residential building completed in 1987. Designed by Weschler Grasso Menziuso, it is clad in pale tan-orange brick, with the entrance set behind a landscaped plaza on the south side. The entry has sliding glass doors set in a glass-and-metal surround and covered by a peaked, glass-and-metal canopy extending out over the plaza toward the sidewalk. To the west the ground floor has a couple of plate-glass windows and a metal service door. To the east there is an angled corner than continues up the face of the tower.

The upper floors on the south facade have a west bay with double-windows paired with sliding glass doors opening onto projecting, white concrete balconies with white metal railings (beginning at the 3rd floor). To the east are two double-windows bays framing a wider balcony (each divided by a brick pier between two units, both with a double-window and a single glass door opening onto the balcony). At the east end the facade projects out and the angled southeast corner has a curtain wall of floor-to-ceiling windows joined to a single-window extending onto both the south and east facades. There are white-painted concrete floor plates, and metal air-conditioning vents below the window bays not fronted by balconies.

The ground floor at the corner as well as along Lexington Avenue has black stone, metal, and glass storefronts, with a stone band across the top. The upper floors on the east facade have two wide bays at the southern half. The first has two sets of double-windows flanking sliding glass door fronted by projecting balconies with angled south ends. The next bay to the north has two double-windows connected by an equal size double-pane of opaque glass. The north half of the east elevation has glass doors opening onto a smaller balcony with an angled north end, two narrower double-windows connected by a single opaque pane, and a north end bay with recessed balconies with angled north ends.

The north elevation is more sparse, with two bays of double-windows at the east end, the second one only on the top seven floor and the 15th floor. There is a bay of double-windows at the west end, but only on eight of the floors.

The west facade is divided into two parts. The south half is sparse, with only a single-window bay in the middle and a double-window bay at the south end. The north half is set back, and has three bays of projecting balconies, two of which have angled north ends.

The building contains 185 condop (condominium-coopereative) units. The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by Famous Pizza, a Starbucks coffee, Abhi & Father convenience store, and 50 Lexington Convenience and Juice Bar.