450 Lexington Avenue, Modern skyscraper on Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, US

450 Lexington Avenue is a 38-story office tower clad in Sardinian gray granite, its pale stone piers framing recessed columns of dark glass. Near the top, a setback section of taller glass panels is capped by a crest of white zigzag chevrons, with a projecting cornice of small round medallions below. The tower rises from within the former Grand Central Post Office, whose neoclassical exterior, up to six meters deep and seven stories high, wraps the base as a podium.

The building was constructed in the 1990s while incorporating the foundation of the former Grand Central Post Office originally designed by Warren and Wetmore in 1909. This blend of an early 20th-century base with contemporary design gives the structure its distinctive character.

The tower rises from inside the former Grand Central Post Office, a neoclassical structure by Warren and Wetmore (1906–1909) whose outer walls, up to six metres deep and seven storeys high, wrap the skyscraper as a base. The address gives the building its name. Below street level run MTA railway tracks, which the tower's foundation was designed not to disturb.

The building sits at a central location in Midtown Manhattan with excellent public transportation access and is surrounded by other office towers and commercial activity. You can view the facade from street level, with the best views of the diamond patterns visible from the corners along Lexington Avenue.

The Sardinian granite was quarried at source in Italy and tested by Cawdor Ramsey before shipment to New York. The tower rises from within the former Grand Central Post Office, whose neoclassical shell, up to six metres deep and seven storeys high, wraps the skyscraper as a base. MTA tracks run beneath the site without touching the tower's foundation.