Le Premier, 112 West 56th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 112 West 56th Street by Carter Horsley

This midblock apartment tower was erected in 1980 and converted to a condominium in 1983. The 32-story building has 55 units.

The building has a very distinctive and impressive marquee that serves as a covered entrance to the apartment tower on west and the New York Health & Racquet Club facility on the lower floors on the east. The marquee is made of polished gray granite and stainless steel and the building has a black and white patterned sidewalk with sidewalk landscaping. The west end of the marquee has a low, slanted polished gray wall that is an attractive foil for the adjacent office tower just to the east that has a triangular plaza and an angled, green-glass façade and conical flagpoles.

The lower three floors of this apartment building are sheathed in polished gray granite in a base that is set back substantially from the building line and its tower, which is clad in gray brick and concrete, is further setback on the base. The base sports two large angled flagpoles on the second floor for the American flag and for the health club's banner.

The entrance is very sleek and well complements the very large and impressive stainless steel and glass marquee of the Parker Meridian Hotel directly across the street as well as the green office building that was elected by Harry Macklowe, the developer of the large Metropolitan Tower mixed-skyscraper on 57th Street whose back on 56th Street has a large, landscaped plaza.

This is one of the city's most eclectic and busiest blocks. In addition to the rear of the Metropolitan Tower, it also has the rear of the Carnegie Hall Tower skyscraper and of the Russian Tea Room Restaurant, both on 57th Street, as well as the multiple entries of the tallest mixed-use tower in the vicinity, CitiSpire, at 150-6 West 56th Street. In addition, this block has some old brownstones and the rear of the Byzantine-style City Center for the Performing Arts and several garages and loading docks and several delicatessens and food stores and a school.

The health club facility is quite popular here and often the smell of chlorine wafts from its doors.

The tower has many balconies, many of which have been enclosed in glass.

The building has a doorman and in the late 1990s this neighborhood considerably with the opening of several new handsome restaurants. Public transportation here is very good and while the area has considerable traffic, inexplicably traffic on the busy streets usually moves along.

Central Park is three blocks to the north and Trump Tower is a block and a half away to the east.