Clinton Towers Apartments

 apartment building  Add category

346-foot, 39-story modernist residential building completed in 1974. Designed by Hoberman & Wasserman, it consists of a tower at the southwest corner of the site, and a 7-story wing extending to, and then along 55th Street, wrapping around a central courtyard area.The facades are clad in pinkish-beige concrete scored with two different textures. Most areas are rough-finished in a pattern of vertical grooves, while the areas mainly around the windows (spandrels and narrow piers separating windows) are smooth and have a more lightly-scored pattern of small, square tiles.

There is a large notch out of the southwest corner of the tower, where the main entrance is. It faces the avenue, with glass-and-metal double-doors below a metal canopy. To the left is a single-window, continued on every upper floor, where it is paired next to a narrow double-window. The south-facing wall of the notched section has a bay of narrow double-windows near the junction between the two (except on the ground floor, which has no openings), and the floorplates are expressed as smooth concrete bands at each floor. At the window bays within this notched section, the spandrels are of the smooth concrete style.

The main south facade of the tower, fronting 54th Street, has three bays each with two sets of narrow double-windows (with smooth concrete between the sets, and in the spandrels as well). At the ground floor there are taller single-windows, and no openings in the center bay. There is also a sligthly-recessed bay at both ends, with double-windows beginning at the 2nd floor, and projecting white concrete balconies with black metal railings beginning at the 3rd, and extending to the roof line.

The main west facade of the tower has two bays, each with two sets of double-windows in the same style as those on the south facade. At the north end, the tower has a recessed bay with triple-windows beginning on the 2nd floor, and balconies beginning on the 3rd. To the north of this the 7-story wing continues to 55th Street, with metal-and-glass storefronts at the ground floor. The upper floors have two recessed bays of triple-windows fronted by balconies near the middle, flanked by smooth concrete sections with two double-windows on either side, and a bay of single-windows at the north end.

The west part of the north facade on 55th Street has a storefront at the west end, a recessed set of metal service doors near the middle, and an open-air 1.5-story corridor at the east end of this section that leads into the courtyard area behind this wing, via two low sets of steps. The upper floors of this section have, from west to east, three double-window bays, a tripartite window bay, and another double-window bay. A wider pier then separates the east end, which has another tripartite window and two double-windows at the 3rd-7th floors, above the open corridor below. The rest of the north wing juts out closer to the street, anchored by an imposing, windowless concrete pavilion that is taller than the rest of the north wing. Farther east, there is a tripartite window paired with a double-window and then two more double-windows (with three wide windows and a double-window at the ground floor). Next, the ground floor has a 2-bay entrance to the Polly Dodge Early Learning Center, with glass-and-metal double-doors in the east bay, and a glass-and-metal infill wall in the west bay. Above, the upper floors have recessed triple-windows fronted by balconies. Two sets of double-windows bays grouped into pairs separate another two recessed bays with balconies, and the east end has a final two double-windows above a dark-red garage door and metal service door at the ground floor.

The north-facing elevation of the tower, overlooking the 7-story wing, has a projecting west half. It has two single-windows and a double-window all grouped near the middle. The east half, set farther back, has a double-window closest to the projecting west half, followed by a tripartite window paired with a double-window, and then two more double-windows, with a recessed end bay fronted by balconies.

The east-facing elevation of the north-projecting western half of the tower has a triple-window and a single-window paired with a double-window, while the east-facing elevation of the south half has two double-windows near the center (and continuations of the recessed corner bays with balconies from the adjoining sides).

The ground floor along the avenue is occupied by DCAP Insurance, Westside Market Place, Il Baretto restaurant, and Klavierhaus pianos. The building contains 396 apartment units.