Baccarat Residences New York

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill finished the tower in 2015 and gave it two faces, the east and west elevations in faceted black aluminum answering the austerity of the Museum of Modern Art across the street, the north and south walls in clear glass. Prismatic fins rank across the podium and glow after dark.

The apartments begin on the eighteenth floor and run to the forty-ninth, ceilings reaching fourteen feet on the upper floors and many of the windows looking down into the sculpture garden at MoMA. Tony Ingrao took the interiors: six-inch white oak planks underfoot, a Baccarat crystal fixture in every residential foyer, kitchens in ebonized walnut and brushed stainless with Sub-Zero and Miele, honed marble through the bathrooms over radiant heat. A wood-enclosed cylindrical column stands in the double-height living room of the duplex penthouse.

Three bronze portals set into the podium keep the entrances apart, and the residences have their own lobby. The Petite Salon lounge is residents only, and downstairs Spa de La Mer, the first La Mer spa in the country, sits alongside a 55-foot marble pool two levels under the street. The library is open to anyone.