This very impressive addition to the midtown skyline is a 57-story hotel and residential condominium tower pays homage to the Empire State Building with its limestone-clad fa??ade and illuminated stainless steel crown. Designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and built by Bizzi & Partners Development of Milan, Italy, it opened last fall and has an unusual and attractive fenestration pattern of vertically angled windows. The building has 214 hotel rooms and 184 condos.

It is distinguished by its flared crown with its teeth-like elements that accentuate the building s verticality dramatically.

The residential entrance is on the side-street and the apartments have Miele washers and dryers and black oak flooring. There is a residents only lounge on the 11th floor with outdoor seating and gas fireplaces, a fitness center and an Auriga Spa with an Aqua Grotto, Ice Cave, Plunge Pool, and Hamam & Experiential Showers.

The development was originally assembly by Joseph Chetrit, who commissioned Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to design a mixed-use tower for the site with unusual fenestration. Chetrit subsequently sold the site to Yitzhak Tessler and Lehman Brothers for about $150 million and Tessler commissioner Gwathmey Siegel & Associates.

Mr. Chetrit and Mr. Tessler are partners in the current conversion of the formerly Helmsley Windsor Hotel on the southwest corner of the Avenue of the Americas and 58th Street to the Windsor Park condominium apartment building. Gwathmey Siegel & Associates were the architects for the conversion and subsequently designed another residential project for Mr. Tessler at 240 Park Avenue South.

The building was able to use about 173,000 square feet of unused development rights from the former Tiffany Building at 401 Fifth Avenue, a landmark, in exchange for a preservation and continued maintenance plan.

The base of the tower is rounded at the corner and has a sculptural cornice.