Consulate General of the People's Republic of China (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / Weehawken / New York City, New York / Twelfth Avenue, 520
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217-foot, 20-story office building completed in 1962 as the Sheraton Motor Inn. Designed by Morris Lapidus & Associates, it was built to serve passengers from the transatlantic ocean liners, which docked at the three piers across the street just north of the Intrepid. The hotel was closed in the 1970s, after air travel killed passenger shipping. The building was then renovated into the offices of the Consul-General of the People's Republic of China.

It consists of an L-shaped tower atop a large 4-story base, which is clad in light-grey stone, with few openings. The base is angled along 12th Avenue, where the main entrance is at the center of the ground floor, with recessed glass-and-metal doors below an interesting canopy of steel with a curved top of green glass. To the south is a single metal service door, and to the north is a freight entrance below a large expanse of metal louvers covering the northern third of the facade. The rest of the facade has horizontal bands of rough-faced stone between floors at the the base's roof line. Above the main entrance is a vertical band of green glass bisected by a flagpole that extends above the base. The north elevation is mostly a continuation of the metal louvers above the ground floor, except for a small area at the east end. The south facade has another entrance at the west end, with a small glass canopy. To the right are five bays filled with glass blocks, and there is another service door and freight entrance at the east end. Above the freight entrance is a vertical band of green glass that rises just above the base's roof line. Near the center of the 2nd floor are two wide bands of windows (the left one is above the eastern two bays of glass blocks), and at the west end of the facade there are large metal louvers at the 2nd floor and between the 3rd & 4th, with a few other small vents placed in various locations on the facade.

The tower is faced in tan-grey concrete, with a serrated south edge of nine angled bays, each set at 45-degrees. The southwest-facing facets have tripartite windows in vertical bands of green glass, while the southeast-facing facets are blank. At the east end is a flat bay with tripartite windows at the right edge. The north-facing and west-facing walls on the inside of the L-shape have similar sawtooth designs, with seven bays and 11 bays respectively. They are joined at the intersection by a wider angled glass bay. The west-facing end wall on the south wing is blank concrete. The north-facing end wall on the north wing is concrete, with a bay of punched square windows in a vertical, green-painted band at the east end, and small, green highlight square at every other floor on the west end.

The east facade is faced mostly in concrete. There is a central projecting section that is painted green on its south half, where it has bands of windows. The small north-facing wall created by the projecting center section has bands of four windows at each floor. Directly south of the projecting section is a small, recessed bay of windows with green spandrels. The north wing of the building is topped by a glass atrium, and the west wing by a metal screen that surround mechanical equipment.
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Coordinates:   40°45'43"N   74°0'1"W
This article was last modified 8 years ago