Inside New York by Gehry, A Closer Look at Manhattan’s Tallest Rental Apartment Building
It should come as no surprise that the most heavily-hyped NYC rental apartment building in recent memory, Frank Gehry’s soaring residential tower at 8 Spruce Street, continues to generate lots of press. After all, the immodestly named New York by Gehry was designed–right down to the doorknobs!–by arguably the planet’s most famous architect, and it carries his distinctive bio-organic look right there on its sleeve… or, more accurately, on its steel curtain wall. Rising 76 stories above the heart of Manhattan’s Financial District, New York by Gehry is also not only the tallest NYC rental tower, it’s also the tallest residential building in the United States, period!
So even though you’ve probably already read and seen and heard plenty about this current record holder, I thought I’d point out a terrific set of photos that the Daily News ran last week, alongside an interview of the building’s developer, Bruce Ratner. True, it’s not terribly difficult to get interesting photographs of the building, what with all the ripply skin–and you can see the tower from just about anywhere downtown, but I had never a seen the topmost, most torquing section with quite the same perspective as the picture above, for which photographer Jeanne Noonan leaned out from a terrace on the 52nd floor, the highest outdoor space in the building.
There’s also lots of great detail in the Daily News piece on New York by Gehry: the window washing equipment, for example, had to be custom made to deal with the constantly changing structure; the hallway lighting was designed by L’Observatoire Int’l, the same team that did such a excellent job with the High Line; and, in case you think I’m exaggerating the excitement the New York by Gehry rental building provoked in architecture and real estate circles, more than 3,000 different images of the structure were up on the internet before Ratner could release his company’s first “official” photograph.
Of course, all is not wine and roses every day at New York by Gehry, and there has been some noise about the amenities at New York by Gehry perhaps not being up to par with prices. Among them: the gym’s too small and not open 24/7; you can only get your packages and deliveries at certain hours; there’s no refrigerated space to store Fresh Direct, et al, during the day. Whether these complaints are universal (or even real), it’s hard to know. BUT I do know this: I would love to take a tour of one of those three bedroom rental apartments on the mind-bogglingly high 76th floor.
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