(Photo: From left: Courtesy of Robert A.M. Stern Architects; Rebecca Sahn )

12. 15 Central Park West
At 61st Street
Robert A.M. Stern’s fortress of limestone luxury replaced the Mayflower Hotel, a Puritan brown cube. The new condo building is far more subtly detailed, and were it not for the fresh-plaster smell, you’d think it was from the day when the rich really knew how to build.

(Photo: From left: NYC Municipal Archives; Rebecca Sahn )

13. 40 Bond Street
Near Lafayette Street
Another chic Bond Streeter, designed by Herzog & De Meuron. Bottle-green window frames surround glass with glass, and flamboyant patterns spread from the calligraphic fence to the steel panels on the façade.

(Photo: From left: Courtesy of Arpad Baksa Architects (2) )

14. 8 Union Square South
At University Place
This glassy dud rises on the site of a little drama that took place in 2005 when workers pulverized a quirky glass stairwell tower in a 1949 building by Morris Lapidus—just as the Landmarks commission was issuing its protective decree. Its successor is utterly generic.