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New York Times Building

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New York Times Building, called the ugliest building in New York City by the American Institute of Architects, is nonetheless impressive in many ways. The exposed frame, ceramic-rod screen, monumental logo and sheer height make it stand out even in a neighborhood filled with buildings that scream for attention.

(Some critics say it was crazy for the Times to spend nearly half a billion dollars for a new headquarters (58% ownership of the $850 million cost) while the paper’s fortunes are shrinking – but that’s neither an architectural nor an aesthetic argument.)

The New York Times Building’s innovative ceramic rod screen – which dramatically cuts energy costs by blocking solar heat – became an embarrassment: Four climbers (so far) have used the screen as a ladder to scale the 52-story facade. The first climber said he did it to protest global warming: Ironic, as his action discourages use of this technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The high-tech lobby, meanwhile, revives and updates an old newspaper tradition: the news is on display for passers-by.

New York Times Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 620 Eighth Avenue between W 40th and W 41st Streets
  • Year completed: 2007
  • Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and FXFOWLE Architects
  • Floors: 52
  • Style: postmodern
New York Times Building Recommended Reading

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Standard Hotel

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Standard Hotel, as they are fond of saying, is not your standard hotel. Perched 30 feet above the High Line park, it’s shaped like an open book – a book that’s also open in the sense that the facades are transparent (not mirrored or tinted) glass.

All that glass makes rooms seem larger than they are, but sometimes guests forget(?) to close the drapes, leading the NY Post to dub the Standard Hotel the “eyeful tower.”

The building’s design and location presented some unique engineering challenges. Engineers had to cope with the soil conditions (landfill), flood resistance, a high water table, and strict limits on how close to the existing High Line structure they could build. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat case study describes how Ennead Architects met those challenges.

For all of the Standard Hotel’s non-standard features, the property did try to blend in at street level: The Standard Grill restaurant was constructed with salvaged brick, in a style that closely mimics the meatpacking warehouses of the neighborhood. You’d never guess that it was new construction.

Standard Hotel Vital Statistics
  • Location: 848 Washington Street at W 13th Street
  • Year completed: 2009
  • Architect: Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership)
  • Floors: 18
  • Style: Postmodern
Standard Hotel Recommended Reading

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Jane Hotel

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Jane Hotel, built in 1908 as the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute, once hosted Titanic survivors. It was designed by William A. Boring, who was also the architect for Ellis Island’s immigration station. Restored in 2008, the Jane Hotel now hosts financial survivors – in tiny rooms with shared bath priced as low as $79 per night.

The distinctive octagonal tower originally had a beacon, to welcome sailors. The beacon is gone, but other nautical connections remain. For starters, Jane Hotel rooms are called cabins. How tiny? A “remarkably cozy” 50 square feet. Some with bunk beds. The New York Times quipped, Popeye Slept Here and Now Olive Oyl Can, Too. the developers, Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode, also run the Maritime Hotel – a former sailor’s hostelry run by the National Maritime Union.

In 1931 the Home and Institute was downgraded to annex status, and in 1944 the YMCA took over the property, removing the beacon in 1946. Also in 1946, YMCA sold the building; it changed hands several more times over the years, finally becoming Riverview Hotel before MacPherson and Goode took over. (See the Corbin Plays portfolio for historic photos of the building with beacon. The PreservationNation Blog has current interior photos.)

In the 1970s and until 2005, the Jane Street Theater called this home.

The Greenwich Village waterfront now attracts joggers instead of sailors. The Jane Hotel is an architectural reminder of New York’s history as a seaport – and a haven (says the hotel) for travelers “with more dash than cash.”

Jane Hotel Vital Statistics
  • Location: 113 Jane Street at West Street (aka 505 West Street)
  • Year completed: 1908
  • Architect: William A. Boring
  • Floors: 6
  • Style: neo-Classical
  • New York City Landmark: 2000
Jane Hotel Recommended Reading

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One Jackson Square

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One Jackson Square is pretty slick – on two levels. As architecture, the building’s 11 floors of undulating ribbon windows, composed of random-width panes, are an arresting composition. As blatant modernism blessed by the NY Landmarks Preservation Commission, the building is a coup; its architects argued essentially that the building’s very quirkiness is a perfect match for a neighborhood synonymous with idiosyncrasy. Besides, the glass facades reflect the historic surroundings.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission had to approve the plans because the site is within the boundaries of the Greenwich Village Historic District. The One Jackson Square site had been a parking lot at the time that the district was designated.

The condo project faced a few design and engineering challenges: The site is an odd shape, so the curved facade masks the unusual angle formed by Greenwich Avenue with Eighth Avenue. The site also spans two building code zones, so the Eighth Avenue section rises to 11 floors, while the Greenwich Avenue section is limited to seven. One Jackson Square is also on top of subway tunnels, so piles had to be driven around the tunnels to bedrock; additionally, isolation springs and pads protect the tunnels while protecting the apartments from vibrations of passing trains. Last but not least, the free-form ribbon windows had to be assembled in small sections off-site, then connected to each other and to the concrete floor slabs.

I’m not quite sure if I should apologize or take a bow: The “Suggested Reading” section is exceptionally long, because of the variety of technical, artistic and social issues involved. The “Forgotten New York” virtual tour is for the benefit of those not familiar with the Greenwich Village context. – K.G.

One Jackson Square Vital Statistics
  • Location: 122 Greenwich Avenue at Eighth Avenue
  • Year completed: 2011
  • Architect: Kohn Pederson Fox Associates
  • Floors: 11
  • Style: Postmodern
One Jackson Square Recommended Reading

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Lipstick Building

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The Lipstick Building – officially named “53rd at Third” – is New York’s most distinctive architecture; its shape and color are impossible to confuse with any other skyscraper.

The developer, Gerald D. Hines Interests, asked for a shape that would stand out – and make “every office a corner office.” Hines, incidentally, was also the developer of curvilicious One Jackson Square and flare-topped 425 Lexington Avenue.

Architect Philip Johnson likely didn’t need much encouragement – he designed the Sony Building (originally AT&T headquarters), nicknamed the “Chippendale Building” for its massive split pediment roofline.

The rationale for such a dramatic and expensive building (polished red granite doesn’t come cheap) was to attract high-rent tenants to the then (1986) less-desirable neighborhood. Apparently that strategy didn’t quite work: the building’s owners went bankrupt in 2010.

Although the so-called Lipstick Building is best known for its 34-story elliptical telescoping shaft, there’s a nine-story box behind the shaft that is also part of the site. The box for the lipstick?

Of historical note: This is where Bernie Madoff made off with $65 billion. His companies leased the 17th through 19th floors.

Lipstick Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 885 Third Avenue at E 53rd Street
  • Year completed: 1986
  • Architect: John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson
  • Floors: 34
  • Style: Postmodern
Lipstick Building Recommended Reading

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Beekman Regent

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Beekman Regent is the private development of a New York City-owned property, P.S. 135 (originally Primary School No. 35) in the Turtle Bay section of Manhattan.

The original buff-colored five-story Romanesque building of 1893 was used as a school until the 1970s, when the Board of Education decided to sell it. The prospective developer intended to demolish the building, but neighborhood groups fought to save the school.

Preservationists succeeded in getting the building listed in the National Register of Historic Places – but not NYC Landmark status. Nonetheless, the city relented and required preservation of the school facade as a condition of the school’s sale. A decade later, the city found a developer that would observe those terms.

Within the first five floors – the original building height – are retail space (currently a Duane Reade drugstore) and four floors of loft apartments with 14-foot ceilings and 10-foot windows. Above that are duplex, standard and penthouse condominium apartments – homes, in developer-speak.

The apartment tower and historic base are different colors and architectural styles. The effect isn’t as drastic as the glass and steel tower that erupts from the Hearst Building (Eighth Avenue at W 57th Street), but it is odd, like the NYU dorm built behind a fragment of St. Ann’s Shrine Armenian Catholic Cathedral on E 12th Street.

Beekman Regent Vital Statistics
  • Location: 931 First Avenue / 351 E 51st Street
  • Year completed: 1893 (original); 2002 (conversion)
  • Architect: George W. Debevoise (original); Costas Kondylis & Partners LLP Architects (conversion)
  • Floors: 21
  • Style: Romanesque
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1980
Beekman Regent Recommended Reading

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Morgan Court

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Morgan Court is the New York sliver building, by virtue of being the set of the Sharon Stone movie “Sliver” as well as by its 33-foot-wide architecture.

Sliver buildings are the tall thin buildings that tower over their neighbors to become visual sore thumbs. This particular sliver building was thin in a second dimension: The foundation was finished one day before a zoning law that would have prohibited the structure went into effect. Morgan Court is a good 20 stories higher than its neighbors, which include the landmarks Church of the Incarnation and the Morgan Library and Museum.

To their credit, Liebman & Liebman Architects did make the building visually interesting, not just tall and skinny. The ribbon windows, curved southern corners, interlocking balconies on the front (Madison Avenue), and comb-like balconies at the northeast corner are more pleasing than some possible alternatives. The ribbon windows and balconies also have the effect of de-emphasizing Morgan Court’s height.

(Morgan Court takes its name from its proximity to the Morgan Library and Museum, a half block to the north on Madison Avenue.)

Morgan Court Vital Statistics
  • Location: 211 Madison Avenue between E 35th and E 36th Streets
  • Year completed: 1984
  • Architect: Liebman & Liebman Architects
  • Floors: 32
  • Style: Postmodern
Morgan Court Recommended Reading

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Geometrics

Collections, Manhattan, , ,

Geometrics is a gallery of New York architecture photos that I like for their strong lines and colors. Photos that are eye candy, more than documentary.

Click the Fullscreen link above the photos, and then the Play icon at the bottom, for a full screen slideshow. Press Esc to return to normal.

From time to time I’ll be adding to or changing this gallery, so if you’re a fan of geometry in architecture, please come back to visit.

In case you’re curious, the list below are the names and locations of buildings used in this gallery. Most are buildings that have their own individual galleries – click the links to explore.

Geometrics Buildings

Mondrian

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Le Mondrian – now Anglicized to The Mondrian – wears a colorful grid that lives up to its name despite the rounded corner. The tower is certainly among New York’s most colorful pieces of architecture.

The name came years after the glass-enclosed condo was finished, however. The 1992 structure was originally Le Palais – an unluckily timed condo that sat vacant for two years. New owners held a naming contest, and Le Mondrian was the winner. “Music Box” might be an equally appropriate name, for the way that balconies intersect the tower’s curved northeast corner.

But by any other name, this eye candy would look as sweet in a neighborhood known for its polished geometric icons: Lipstick Building, CitiGroup Center, and 599 Lexington Avenue are just down the block.

Mondrian Vital Statistics
  • Location: 250 E 54th Street at Second Avenue
  • Year completed: 1992
  • Architect: FXFOWLE, Architects
  • Floors: 43
  • Style: Postmodern
Mondrian Recommended Reading

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Whitehall Building

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Whitehall Building is actually two buildings: the original 1904 20-story structure facing Battery Place, and a 1910 32-story annex directly behind that, facing West Street.

(A third building, added to the complex in 1972, is not included in this gallery. Now named One Western Union International Plaza, that 20-story office building was built in a completely different style and is now under different ownership.)

Whitehall Building was a little bit of a gamble – its location was two blocks off Broadway, the most desirable address. But the park across the street guaranteed unimpeded views; with lower-than-Broadway rents, the building was an immediate success. The owners, Robert and William Chesebrough, started buying up adjacent lots for an annex even before the first building was completed. (Robert Chesebrough was the inventor of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly.)

Henry J. Hardenbergh was the architect for the Whitehall Building. Among his prior commissions were the Dakota Apartments (1884), the original Waldorf (1895) and Astoria (1897) hotels, and the Western Union Telegraph Building (1884). His design for the Whitehall was quite colorful for the times and the location, including five different shades of brick and stone in the Battery Place facade.

The records don’t say why Hardenbergh wasn’t selected to design the annex – but it may have been because he was busy designing the Plaza Hotel. In any case, Clinton & Russell was selected for the job. Their annex, Greater Whitehall, was much larger than Whitehall Building; in fact, it was the largest office building in New York at the time.

The upper floors (14-31) of both buildings have now been converted to rental apartments – Ocean Luxury Residences.

Whitehall Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 17 Battery Place
  • Year completed: 1904; 1910 (annex, aka Greater Whitehall)
  • Architect: Henry J. Hardenbergh; Clinton & Russell (annex)
  • Floors: 20; 31 (annex)
  • Style: neo-Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 2000
Whitehall Building Recommended Reading

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