1 West 129th Street

1 West 129th Street, also known as 2100 Fifth Avenue, is an ungainly PoMo design; its value is social, rather than architectural, as it provides affordable housing for New Yorkers with autism and developmental disabilities.

1485 Fifth Avenue, Fifth on the Park

A flashy anomaly in the neighborhood, 1485 Fifth Avenue, also known as “Fifth on the Park”, is a 2007 design by FXFOWLE Architects.  A highly sculptural ground floor is offset by a red brick approximation of Art Moderne above; the effect is playful if somewhat aggressively so. FXFOWLE Architects’ credits include the mock-deconstructionist 4 Time… Continue reading

1280 Fifth Avenue

An oddly desultory design by the offices of Robert A. M. Stern, 1280 Fifth Avenue, also known as One Museum Mile, was the first major building on a Central-Park-facing block since the 1970s.  An uninteresting PoMo exercise it was also intended to be the location of the Museum of African Art, (not to be confused… Continue reading

1261 Fifth Avenue, The Lott Residence

An assisted care facility, the Lott Residence at 1261 Fifth Avenue is a not-entirely unsuccessful attempt at contextualism.

1001 Fifth Avenue

A postmodern design by Johnson & Burgee, 1001 Fifth Avenue was widely criticized when completed in 1979 for its “billboard” façade and “sliced-off Tootsie Roll” fenestration (the latter crack coming from The New York Times’ architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable).  As a forerunner of the later and more celebrated AT&T Building by the same firm,… Continue reading