Olympic Tower stands at 641 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, between 51st and 52nd Streets. It was built from 1971 to 1974 for the developers Victory Development, led by Aristotle Onassis, and Arlen Realty and Development. It is named after Olympic Airways. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill replaced the first design by Morris Lapidus.
The International Style tower is 620 feet (190 meters) high and has 51 stories. Its facade is a curtain wall of brown-tinted glass in black anodized aluminum. The lower 21 stories are steel and the upper 30 are reinforced concrete.
The building mixes uses. Floors 1 and 2 hold shops, floors 3 to 21 hold offices, and floors 22 to 51 hold about 230 condominiums. A public atrium called Olympic Place links 51st and 52nd Streets and was renovated in 2019 with a three-tiered waterfall.
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