"I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to build in Manhattan. Now, at my age, I thought I had lost the opportunity. I was very happy to be invited and thought, ‘Well, let’s see if I still have energy for this project.’"
Álvaro Siza
Large windows will offer views of the Hudson River, and according to Siza resembles a giraffe due to its slender upper half. Siza aimed to give his building similar qualities — a “special point” at the top and a graceful presence where it meets the street. Then, realizing that the corners of the tower afforded views to Central Park to the northeast, and to the Hudson River to the southwest, he designed a gridded facade around corner windows.
After acquiring the narrow corner site at West 56th Street and 11th Avenue, just east of a city Department of Sanitation garage, and south of numerous new large-scale rental buildings developers decided Álvaro Siza’s stripped-down geometric work would be an ideal fit for the project.
He began his architecture career in 1954 and during a recent interview, he recalled being smitten with New York from the moment he first visited in the 1960s. At the time, he said, he was struck both by the crowns of great skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, as well as the intricate level of detail these buildings had at street level. “It was a constant surprise,” he said. “It was so interesting, the imagination at the edges of the buildings: the floor and the sky.”
The interiors of the building were designed by Gabellini Sheppard Associates, the same firm that designed the interiors at 152 Elizabeth Street.
Amenities include fitness, yoga and boxing rooms, a children’s playroom, a dining room with a catering kitchen, a library and a media room. There will also be a fourth-floor garden designed by the landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg.
Because of the slender nature of the tower, many floors have only one or two apartments, and more than half of the project’s 80 apartments will have direct, keyed elevator access. Sales are expected to launch later in September, with one-bedroom units from $1.26 million, two-bedrooms from $2.42 million, three-bedrooms from $4.22 million, and full-floor four-bedrooms from just over $11 million.
The penthouse, however, which comes with a private terrace beneath a notch cut into the crown of the building, at a price that has yet to be announced, won’t be quite so attainable.
