If buildings were people, this might be Tom Wolfe ("Bonfire of the Vanities") in a pin-stripe suit and white fedora.

To carry the analogy a bit further, this building is tottering on the verge of brilliance, but not quite sure if it wants to make a full commitment.

Designed by Wechsler, Grasso, Menziuso P.C., this 49-story, red-brick condominium structure is distinctly vertiginous. Most apartments have balconies, but their protrusions hardly interrupt the building’s overwhelming verticality, which is strongly accented by light-colored piers near the building’s corners.

The design touch of not placing the "pier" accents at the corners, just near them, is quite brilliant and gives the building much more character. So strong are these accents that the shift in balcony placement on the upper floors is hardly noticeable, another strong design feature.

Completed in 1988, the building as 3 passenger elevators for its 234 units, some of which have bidets and washer/dryers and all have intrusion alarms.

The project, developed by East/West Venture (Haseko) and Toru Nagayama, is one of several tall apartment towers in a dense cluster north of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

The design is more appropriate for Third Avenue in the 60’s, where it might have garnered more open views. Its location here is a mix of commercial and residential projects with a fair bit of traffic along Second Avenue, which is still in search of its character. The project, however, is not far from the Grand Central business district, and it is also not far from Sheldon H. Solow’s planned huge redevelopment along First Avenue of the former Con Edison properties, south of the United Nations.