The Connaught Hotel in London is a small, elegant, very expensive and very famous Edwardian hostelry.

This Connaught bears no resemblance, but that is not unusual for building names in New York.

By its era's standards in New York, it is a first-class apartment tower in a convenient midtown location. Those standards, of course, are not up to the real luxury of earlier generations, but they include modern amenities and conveniences that appeal to many such as a rooftop health club and pool, balconies and a garage.

This 35-story apartment tower was built in 1978 and converted to a cooperative in 1982.

Designed by Philip Birnbaum for developers Charles Benenson and Lawrence and Preston Tisch, the tower has a sharp rectilinearity punctuated by columns of balconies. A nice architectural touch is that the roof "bulges" over the columns of balconies that gives them more "substance" visually as well as make the building's top a bit more interesting.

The 360-unit building has a nice plaza which helps distance the building a bit from the heavy traffic of Second Avenue, which is an avenue that is not urbanistically hurt by plazas.

The 360-unit building has a nice plaza which helps distance the building a bit from the heavy traffic of Second Avenue, which is an avenue that is not urbanistically hurt by plazas.