The tower's plazas, which have pyramidal planters, often suffer from windy gusts as a result of the tower's exposed height.

This sentinel, which has a large driveway on Madison Avenue, was an important pioneer in new development north of 86th Street at the time and was important in upgrading its Carnegie Hill neighborhood.

While it can be argued that it broke the scale of the area, so did the Carlyle Hotel and the great multi-towered apartment buildings of Central Park West. In fact, this tower helped mitigate the terrible aesthetic damage inflicted on the Upper East Side by the giant Mt. Sinai Hospital tower, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill about a dozen blocks to the north.

The building has a rooftop health club and the 248 cooperative apartments, all two- and three-bedroom units, have 9-foot-high ceilings, which was higher than the standard then current.

A standout, yes, but a handsome one. One critic has likened, in a derogatory fashion, its street-level appearance to a fortress, yet the analogy is not entirely inappropriate as a few blocks to the north on the avenue stands the ruins of the Squadron A Armory, a similarly colored battlement.

A standout, yes, but a handsome one. One critic has likened, in a derogatory fashion, its street-level appearance to a fortress, yet the analogy is not entirely inappropriate as a few blocks to the north on the avenue stands the ruins of the Squadron A Armory, a similarly colored battlement.