The Galleria Condominiums | office building, skyscraper

 office building, skyscraper, condominium

551-foot, 55-story modernist mixed-use building completed in 1975. Designed by David Kenneth Specter & Associates, it was originally planned as an all-office building, the design had to be changed due to the worsening office space market of the early 1970s. A mix of apartment and office uses was chosen to comply with the area's zoning for commercial uses.

The Galleria features a spectacular 9-story atrium, and the sky-lit, through-block lobby is magnificent with its many balconies and 8 commercial floors. The 8-story base housing the atrium is accessible from both 57th and 58th Streets, some steps down from the street and behind glass doors.

The apartment tower is located to the north side of the plot, retaining the east views from the older Ritz Tower immediately next door. The tower has a facing of glass walls and dark brown brick. The first nine floors for the office spaces are distinguishable by the larger amount of solid brick wall on the facade.

The building's 57th Street frontage is scooped inward within a handsome granite frame ribbed with boldly colored steel ribs at a sharp angle that mirrors the large, angled skylight that covers the building's cantilevered atrium that separates the 57th Street entrances and offices from the residential tower and health club that overlooks the atrium. The 57th Street entrance is divided by a handsome, angled greenhouse. To the left of the separator is the entrance, down a few stairs, to the through-block public galleria/atrium. To the right is a small flight of stairs leading up to the very attractive residential lobby, which is notable for its colorful wall hangings and its balcony overlooking the building's centerpiece, the 8-story atrium with its north and south cantilevered sides and two side-bay atria. Black metal canopies supported by vertical beams are placed in front of both entrances. A health club that straddles both the south and north wings of the atrium overlooks the atrium as do the offices. While the lower two floors of the 57th Street facade angle sharply back, the next two floor reverse and angle forward, with granite cladding. At the 3rd, 4th, & 5th floors there are bands of glass overhanging the recessed space below, with panes facing both forward as well as straight down. The 6th floor, topping the south end of the 57th-Street facade, has a wide band with metal louvers. The base sets back above the 6th floor to the atrium ceilings behind it.

On 58th Street the tower rises straight up from the sidewalk, with a 2-story base recessed behind the banded granite piers. The base has five bays, and the 2nd bay from the east extends its recessed area up to the 3rd floor as well. This bay has the residential entrance on 58th Street, with two sets of glass double-doors at the ground floor, with another metal canopy in front of them. The far eastern bay has two metal service doors, the 2nd bay from the west has a loading dock and more service doors, and the west end bay has an entrance/exit to the underground parking garage.

The first 12 floors above the base are clad in alternating bands of dark-brown brick and glass. The residential portion has 253 condominium units on the top 47 floors. The spandrels between floors are thinner here, and the glass bands are subdivided into many smaller window panes of varying sizes. The south-side apartments have greenhouse-like, roofed balconies enclosed with glass walls protruding from the facade. The penthouse contains a roof garden and solar heated swimming pool. The building's pre-Deconstructivist top is strange, if not ugly. The look resulted from the complexity of the layout for the 16,000-square-foot, quadruplex penthouse that was designed for Stewart Mott, a General Motors heir with an interest in philanthropy and gardens. Mott, whose landscaping demands required added structural strengthening for the tower, subsequently did not move into his spectacular dream penthouse. The apartment was eventually occupied, only to be put back on the market without much success for quite a long time. In late 1997, David Copperfield, the magician, bought it.

On March 20, 1991, Conor Clapton (Eric Clapton's son) was killed when he fell out of an open window on the 53rd floor of this building.