Replacing the ornate home of Charles Lewis Tiffany at the corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street, 19 East 72nd Street was one of the few apartment buildings Candela completed during the Great Depression. Stripped down to simple, stone surfaces with minimal ornamentation, the structure showed the rising influence of Modernism on American architecture and design. The curved profile of the building's lower three floors copied the Austrian Pavilion that Viennese architect and designer Josef Hoffmann had designed for the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris.