2 Park Avenue is a 28-story office building in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The structure, along the west side of Park Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets, was designed by Ely Jacques Kahn and was developed by Abe N. Adelson from 1926 to 1928. The building, known for its facade of brick and colored architectural terracotta, is a New York City designated landmark.
The facade of the first three stories is made of stone and largely contains storefronts, except for a central entrance on Park Avenue. The lower section of the building occupies nearly its entire lot, and the building contains setbacks at the 11th, 18th, and 25th stories. The facade contains a polychrome color scheme above the 16th floor, including colored terracotta tiles manufactured by Léon-Victor Solon. The design of the vaulted main lobby dates to the 1970s, when decorations such as a mural by Winold Reiss were added. Office tenants over the years have included the Boy Scouts of America, as well as various textiles, clothing, media, and financial firms.
The site had been occupied by the Park Avenue Hotel since the 1870s. Developer Henry Mandel bought the hotel in 1925 in conjunction with a nearby development; he sold the site to Adelson, who erected the building and issued bonds to fund the project. The Continental Bank and Trust Company took over the building in foreclosure in 1935, and real-estate firm Webb and Knapp acquired it in 1953. After several sales in the 1960s, Sheldon Lewis Breitbart bought 2 Park Avenue's leasehold in 1962. Breitbart renovated the lobby after buying the building outright in 1976. Bernard H. Mendik acquired the building in 1986 after several of the building's limited partners accused Breitbart of impropriety. Mendik merged his company in 1997 with Vornado Realty Trust, which sold the building in 2003 to a German firm. Morgan Stanley Real Estate bought a majority stake in 2 Park Avenue in 2007 and sold it to Haddad Brands in 2024.
Site 2 Park Avenue occupies the eastern section of a city block in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by 32nd Street on the south, Park Avenue on the east, and 33rd Street on the north; the city block extends westward to Madison Avenue. The building's land lot has a total area of . It measures from north to south and from west to east. Entrances to the New York City Subway's 33rd Street station are directly outside the building's northeast and southeast corners. The building is on the same block as 29 East 32nd Street to the west. Other nearby buildings include the Hotel Grand Union to the southwest, Madison Belmont Building to the northwest, 4 Park Avenue to the north, and 3 Park Avenue to the northeast.
The adjacent portion of Park Avenue slopes upward from south to north. The site was part of the 18th-century estate of merchant Robert Murray. In the 1860s, after the Park Avenue Tunnel was built, the segment of Fourth Avenue between 34th and 40th Streets was renamed Park Avenue, while the avenue's name south of 34th Street remained unchanged. Fourth and Park Avenues in Murray Hill had been developed with upscale residences by the 1870s.
The site had previously been occupied by the Park Avenue Hotel, which was built in 1878 by dry-goods businessman Alexander Turney Stewart and was originally a hotel for "working girls". This building was seven or eight stories high, with 502 rooms, and had an internal courtyard. Despite being destroyed in a 1902 fire that killed 17 people, the hotel was rebuilt and continued to operate for two decades. The New York Times described the hotel as "one of the most popular hostelries in New York City" when it was in operation. Architecture 2 Park Avenue was designed by Ely Jacques Kahn in the Art Deco style. It rises 28 or 29 stories and measures about to its roof. The lower section of the building occupies nearly its entire lot, but there is a light court facing west toward the adjacent building. On the western side of the building, there is a setback along 32nd and 33rd Street on the 11th story. There is a setback on all sides at the 18th story, above the tops of the western wings. The building has another setback at the 26th story; the top three stories are treated as a penthouse. The building's height was intended to maximize profit; since elevators and other service areas took up a significant part of the rentable area on upper stories, it would have been unprofitable to build a taller structure.
Facade The western elevation of the facade, on Park Avenue, is divided into nine bays along each of the 1st through 17th stories and seven bays on each of the 18th through 25th stories. Generally, the two outermost bays are designed similarly to each other, and the central bays share a common design that contrasts with the outer bays. The northern and southern elevations are each divided into ten bays along each of the 1st through 17th stories. The easternmost seven bays are divided into two outer bays and five central bays (similar in design to the facade on Park Avenue), while the westernmost three bays are again different in design. These taper to six bays on the 18th through 25th stories.
The facade contains a polychrome color scheme above the 16th floor, which Kahn said was inspired by the texture of fabric. Kahn's friend Léon-Victor Solon designed the polychrome terracotta panels. These consisted of red, yellow, green, and blue panels with glazing, and black panels with a luster finish. According to Kahn's biographer Jewel Stern, Solon had been selected because he was "the nation's leading authority on architectural polychromy". At the time of the building's completion, few buildings used colored terracotta panels on facades, though such panels were characteristic of Kahn's work during the 1920s. Kahn had wanted to include decorative forms in the building's design, but typical sculpted ornamentation was difficult to see from the street. Unlike traditional decorations (which were applied to a completed curtain wall) the terracotta panels on 2 Park Avenue's facade are part of the curtain wall itself.
Base
The main entrance is recessed within the central bay. The floors of the vestibule are paved in travertine. The main entrance to the lobby consists of two revolving bronze doors flanked by single bronze doors; all are decorated with geometric motifs. Above these is an ornate bronze transom bar, as well as a semicircular window. The transom contains motifs relating to machines, designed in a style resembling Frank Lloyd Wright's work. The mosaic ceiling was intended to evoke the design of a tapestry, with blue, black, and red tesserae as well as gold accents. The walls on either side are made of polished gray marble and originally contained light sconces. The side walls each contain a bronze door with an illuminated sign above it. The south wall also has a bronze tenant directory and the north wall contains a second door leading to the storefronts.
At the bottom of the 1st story is a water table made of granite. The 1st through 3rd stories are clad with tan stone, which blends in with the brick on the upper stories.; The 1st and 2nd stories contain double-height openings, divided by vertical stone piers. The 1st story includes storefronts made of metal and glass, above which are horizontal spandrels made of cast iron. Panels were installed in front of these spandrels at some point in the 20th century before being removed. Each 2nd-story window is composed of a large central window between a pair of smaller sash windows, except in the central bay on Park Avenue, which contains four sash windows separated by triangular piers. There is a cyma reversa molding above these windows. On the 3rd story, the outermost two bays each contain two sash windows. The central bays are separated from each other by wide triangular piers; each bay has four narrow sash windows separated by flat pilasters.
The lowest three stories on Park Avenue, 32nd Street, and 33rd Street are similar, with minor exceptions. On 33rd Street, there is a secondary entrance in the fifth bay from east, with bronze and glass doors. An unused service entrance is placed on 32nd Street as well. The westernmost two bays on 32nd Street contain vehicular loading docks with roller shutters.
Upper stories
The upper stories are clad with brick. On all three elevations, at the 4th through 15th stories, each of the outer bays has two rectangular windows per floor, which are separated by flat pilasters. The flat brick surfaces of the outer bays contrast with the central bays' textured surfaces. Furthermore, the bricks in the outer bays are lighter in tone than with the bricks in the central bays, providing more visual contrast.
On all three elevations, each of the central bays contains four windows on each floor. The windows of each bay are separated vertically by narrow brick pilasters and horizontally by darker-brick spandrels, which are textured to resemble woven fabric. The spandrels alternately contain narrow brick headers, which project from the wall, and wider brick stretchers, which are flush with the wall. Furthermore, each four-window bay is separated by triangular brick piers, which are supported by stone corbels on the 3rd story and rise to the 17th story. At the setbacks, the brick piers are topped by blue terracotta panels. On the north and south elevations, the westernmost three bays are also faced with brick and divided by triangular piers, but there are only three windows per bay.
Between the 16th story and the roof are polychrome terracotta panels, designed with several geometric and abstract motifs. In the center bays, the spandrels above the 15th and 16th stories contain superimposed geometric motifs in red, yellow, green, and blue.; The panels above the 17th story are treated as an attic section, with different designs above the central and outer bays.; The central windows are topped by projecting yellow bars, while the brick piers are topped by blue terracotta. In the outermost bays, the 16th- and 17th-story windows are interspersed with horizontal bands of orange and yellow. Above the 17th story, the outer bays contain red, blue, and black bands (from bottom to top), each with vertical yellow bars. The outer panels above the 17th story contain curving shapes, the only curved motifs used in any of the terracotta panels.
Above the 18th to 22nd stories, there is a blue-on-yellow spandrel above each of the windows in the central bays. The outer bays contain horizontal orange-and-yellow bands between the windows on each story. The spandrels between the 24th and 25th stories contain geometric motifs in red, yellow, green, and blue, while the windows in the outer bays are interspersed with horizontal bands of orange and yellow. Above the 25th story, the central and outer bays are topped by ornament similar to that above the 17th story. The main difference is that the outer bays contain incisions above the 25th story. The top three stories are decorated similarly to the 16th and 17th and the 24th and 25th floors, except that the outer bays also have colored terracotta.
Interior
Ground level and lobby