4 Park Avenue

This handsome pre-war building with two light courts occupies the southwest corner of 34th Street and Park Avenue. 4 Park Avenue began life as a luxury hotel, and the elegance has endured even after the building was converted to rental apartments in 1967. A critic for the magazine Architecture & Building loved the gray brick for its complex undercurrent of "hidden and indescribable golden browns and blues," calling it "a sight worth crossing a continent to see." Which is all well and good, but made that much better by the fact that the lovely pre-war rental apartments at 4 Park Avenue are every bit as distinguished as its architecture.