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About 52 Park Avenue
This distinguished, red-brick apartment building was designed by David Kenneth Specter & Associates and is one of the most attractive and elegant "modern" buildings in the city and is notable for its interesting treatment of its balconies. Its design is not so much a "modern" statement as a sophisticated "in-fill" building that discretely asserts itself while maintaining good contextual relations with its neighbors.
The 22-story building has only 17 condominium apartments! It has a concierge and a doorman, but no garage, no health club and no roof deck. It was originally developed with 10 duplex apartments by the Sybedon Corporation of which Edward Glickman was a principal, but an Arkansas bank that financed it folded just before construction was completed and it was subsequently acquired at auction by some Iranian interests who changed many of the layouts to "simplexes" and eventually it was opened, several years after it had been topped out, in 2001 by Ian Bruce Eichner.
According to architect Specter, who also designed the Galleria, one of the city's major mixed-use towers at 115 East 57th Street, "although architectural references to the neighborhood and to the adjoining buildings have been incorporated in the design, this contextual solution does not attempt to copy literally, but to establish relationships in subjective feeling, rhythm and scale."
"For example," he continued, "the characteristic combination of brick and limestone is suggested by the use of brick and exposed architectural concrete. The brick selected does not match a particular building, but fits within the neighborhood's range of brick colors. The richness of detail common to many of the older Park Avenue buildings is interpreted here by creating complex shadow patterns on the façade. The strong, architecturally reinforced parapet above the seventeenth floor is intentionally close in height, but does not exactly align with the adjacent building;' other horizontal banding relates to specific architectural features of the neighboring structures. The building has strongly defined and articulated top and bottom, and extends the characteristic street wall façade. The 'as-of-right' building that could have been built under the zoning ordinance could not have been responsive to some of the architectural considerations described above; by qualifying for Housing Quality Standards under the New York City Zoning Resolution the design is far more successful as an example of contextual design."
The building's avenue façade is crisp and very elegant. The building has a prime location in the heart of the Murray Hill district and is convenient to Lord & Taylor, two large computer stores, and the Pierpont Morgan Library, public transportation and is a few blocks south of Grand Central Terminal.
Carter B. Horsley
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