New York has surprisingly few sleek apartment towers and this is one of the best.

Designed by Fox & Fowle, an architectural firm best known for its office buildings, this 43-story is not only stunning, but, perhaps more unusual for New York, colorful.

At one point, this building was known as Le Grand Palais. Now known as The Mondrian, it is named after the great modernist painter famed for his "Broadway Boogie Woogie" designs of colored grids.

The aluminum and glass curtail wall of this tower sports red bands every five floors and the rest of the tower's façades are bright white and dark blue. It is far more colorful than the more touted Museum Tower on West 53rd Street by Cesar Pelli that was supposed to have 14 different colors on its rather dark façade that have been hard to discern.

Although the massing of the tower is a bit odd to maximize its zoning potential, it is, nevertheless, quite handsome in its combination of clean, crisp rectilinearity and a curved corner. The base of the tower is a three-story-high base that fills the site.

The 179-unit condominium tower was opened in early 1992. It was developed by Charles B. Benenson and Laurence A. and Preston R. Tisch.

Mr. Benenson was the head of Benenson Capital Company, a business founded in 1905 by his father, Benjamin. In 1976, Charles B. Benenson built the Connaught rental apartment building on the southeast corner of Second Avenue and 54th Street that was later converted to a...