2 Park Avenue, Art Deco high-rise building in Murray Hill, Manhattan, US.
2 Park Avenue is a 28-story office building on the west side of Park Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd Streets in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. The tower steps back at several levels as it rises, a feature common in Art Deco office construction of that era.
The building went up between 1926 and 1928 on a site that had been occupied by the Park Avenue Hotel since the 1870s. Its construction was part of a broader shift in the neighborhood, as older residential hotels gave way to commercial office towers during that period.
The upper floors display polychrome terracotta cladding in warm yellows, oranges, and browns that draw the eye upward from the street. This kind of colorful exterior treatment is rare on Manhattan office buildings and gives the building a look that stands out along the avenue.
The building stands on Park Avenue in Murray Hill and is easy to reach on foot from Grand Central Terminal a few blocks north. Since it is an active office building, access inside is generally limited to tenants and their guests.
The polychrome terracotta cladding above the 16th floor was designed by Léon-Victor Solon, a French artist better known for his work in the ceramics industry in Britain. It was one of the first times this type of colorful decorative approach appeared on a Manhattan skyscraper.
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