Architecture And Design

A New York institution is getting a makeover---and a new name. The 92nd Street Y announced on Tuesday it has rebranded to 92nd Street Y, New York (with a nickname of 92NY), as part of a post-pandemic transformation that also involves a major revamp and new online programs. This month, a $200 million redevelopment of the organization's Upper East Side home at 1395 Lexington Avenue led by Beyer Blinder Belle will begin, starting with a renovation of its public performance space, a new dance center, and improvements to the gym.
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Photo: ©Jenna Bascom Photography

May 9, 2022

NYCxDESIGN 2022: What to see and do at New York City’s biggest celebration of design

Taking place in one of the world's most innovative design capitals, New York City's largest design festival will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. NYCxDESIGN: The Festival is a showcase of the newest and most creative offerings in furniture, lighting, textiles, and accessories–many of which you'll be seeing for the next several years in magazines, blogs, and showrooms–with festival attendees from points far and near converging on the city’s five boroughs from May 10–20. Design theory, urbanism, and big-picture issues like the environment and inequality inform brainy panel discussions and workshops. And if modern objects are your thing, you'll be in design heaven with popular programs like Apartment Therapy's Small / Cool providing a serious opportunity to get ideas for your own urban living space. Read on for a handful of highlights.
NYC X Design Festival 2022 highlights, this way

NYC gives billionaire Bill Ackman green light to build rooftop penthouse on Central Park West

All renderings designed by Foster+ Partners, courtesy of the Landmarks Preservation Commission

May 3, 2022

NYC gives billionaire Bill Ackman green light to build rooftop penthouse on Central Park West

Billionaire Bill Ackman is getting his Central Park-facing rooftop glass penthouse designed by Norman Foster after all. The Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday approved plans from the hedge fund founder to build a glass penthouse addition on top of a 100-year-old Upper West Side co-op building where he owns an apartment. First presented last November as a two-level glass box on the roof of 6-16 West 77th Street, the approved proposal includes a scaled-down design and more muted materials.
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NYC finally launches containerized trash bin pilot

Image courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office on Flickr

April 21, 2022

NYC finally launches containerized trash bin pilot

Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Wednesday unveiled a new containerized waste bin that the city will eventually deploy across all five boroughs in hopes of thwarting rats, making more room on the sidewalks, and improving the overall quality of life for residents. The new bins are part of the city's Clean Curbs Pilot program, which was announced two years ago. The first bins were installed in Times Square on Wednesday.
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$7.9M Village townhouse was the home of civil rights lawyer William Kunstler

Photo courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens

April 19, 2022

$7.9M Village townhouse was the home of civil rights lawyer William Kunstler

This landmarked brick row house at 13 Gay Street in Greenwich Village was once the home and office of noted American civil rights attorneys William Kunstler and Margaret Ratner Kunstler. Best known for defending the Chicago Seven, William Kunstler's client roster included Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and the Attica prison rioters among many others. Now asking $7,900,000, the four-story single-family Greek Revival townhouse was built in 1844. Two garden floor spaces are zoned for live/work.
Village townhouse tour, this way

New public orchard on Governors Island grows fruit not found in NYC for centuries

Rendering of The Open Orchard project site on Governors Island in full bloom; courtesy of Sam Van Aken

April 11, 2022

New public orchard on Governors Island grows fruit not found in NYC for centuries

An orchard with trees containing fruit varieties native to the New York City region will open to the public this month on Governors Island. Created by artist Sam Van Aken, the artwork, The Open Orchard, consists of 102 trees bearing fruits grown in the state within the past 400 years but which have gone extinct due to climate change and industrialization. The orchard will serve as a gene bank for rare fruit species that can no longer be found naturally here, allowing New Yorkers to taste fruit that has not existed for hundreds of years, while also preserving them for future generations. The Open Orchard will officially open on Arbor Day, April 29, the Trust for Governors Island announced on Monday.
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NYC celebrates Frederick Law Olmsted’s bicentennial birthday with a month of parks programs

All images courtesy of Daniel Avila / NYC Parks

April 8, 2022

NYC celebrates Frederick Law Olmsted’s bicentennial birthday with a month of parks programs

Throughout April, the city's parks will celebrate the 200th birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect whose visionary work on Central Park, Prospect Park, and many other public parks helped influence the future of urban green space design. The Parks Department will be teaching New Yorkers about Olmsted's influence on urban design with an exhibition at the Arsenal Gallery, tours led by the Urban Park Rangers, and much more.
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Sales launch at Robert A.M. Stern’s waterfront Chelsea condo, two-bedrooms priced from $4M

All images courtesy of Related Companies

April 7, 2022

Sales launch at Robert A.M. Stern’s waterfront Chelsea condo, two-bedrooms priced from $4M

Related Companies on Thursday launched sales at The Cortland, a new 25-story waterfront luxury condo designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) with interiors from Olson Kundig. Located at 555 West 22nd Street in Chelsea, the tower offers residents views of the Hudson River and almost 20,000 square feet of amenity space. While exact pricing for all 144 loft-like residences has not been released yet, a spokesperson for the project said two-bedrooms start at just above $4 million and over $21 million for four bedrooms.
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Jane’s Walk returns to NYC with in-person tours and focus on four Harlem historic districts

Courtesy of the Landmarks Preservation Commission

April 5, 2022

Jane’s Walk returns to NYC with in-person tours and focus on four Harlem historic districts

For the first time since 2019, Jane's Walk NYC will offer in-person tours next month. Presented by the Municipal Art Society of New York, Jane's Walk is a three-day festival of free guided walking tours through iconic New York City neighborhoods. This year, the volunteer-led event, which runs May 6-8, includes walks through four historic districts in Harlem: the Mount Morris Park Historic District, the Central Harlem Historic District, Striver's Row, and the Dorrance Brooks Historic District, designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission last June.
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NYC’s Museum of Chinese in America unveils new $118M building designed by Maya Lin

The Museum of Chinese in America on Friday unveiled plans for a new headquarters designed by renowned architect Maya Lin. The new nine-story museum, to rise on the site of MOCA's current Centre Street location in Chinatown, will expand its current footprint from 12,000 square feet to about 68,000 square feet. Lin's design involves a puzzle-like exterior made of metal and perforated panels, a two-story lecture hall, a light-filled atrium, community space, and exhibitions dedicated to the history of the Chinese diaspora in the U.S. As Bloomberg first reported, the new museum will cost $118 million and is expected to open in 2025.
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Architecture And Design

Asking $33M, the tallest penthouse on the UES has dramatic archways and three levels of terraces

All images courtesy of March Made for DDG

March 31, 2022

Asking $33M, the tallest penthouse on the UES has dramatic archways and three levels of terraces

Here's a chance to own the highest residence in the tallest residential tower on the Upper East Side. Situated at the pinnacle of DDG's condominium at 180 East 88th Street, this duplex penthouse boasts over 5,500 square feet of interior space. Now on the market for $33,000,000, the five-bedroom penthouse flaunts soaring ceiling heights, a sculptural spiral staircase, and an incredible 3,500 square feet of private outdoor space spread across three levels.
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Museum of Natural History’s new Studio Gang-designed science center to open next winter

Entrance, © Neoscape, Inc.

March 29, 2022

Museum of Natural History’s new Studio Gang-designed science center to open next winter

After years of delays due to legal action, the American Museum of Natural History's Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation has an official opening date. The museum on Monday announced the Gilder Center, a 230,000 square foot architectural wonder designed by Jeanne Gang's Studio Gang, will open to the public next winter. The new center will improve circulation in the museum and help fulfill a 150-year-old vision of creating a continuous campus across four city blocks. It will also provide space for new galleries, educational programs, an expanded library, and a theater.
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Lever Club will bring a new dining and lounge option to Lever House tenants after renovation

Rendering ©TMRW

March 28, 2022

Lever Club will bring a new dining and lounge option to Lever House tenants after renovation

In January, 6sqft reported the $100 million renovation of the landmarked Midtown Lever House skyscraper, led by the building's original architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), had begun. On Monday it was announced the redeveloped Manhattan icon will be home to Lever Club, an exclusive restaurant and lounge for tenants. The new venue will span the building's entire third floor and have 15,000 square feet of outdoor terrace space.
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20 mixed-income units available at ODA’s new Lower East Side rental, from $677/month

Rendering courtesy of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development

March 25, 2022

20 mixed-income units available at ODA’s new Lower East Side rental, from $677/month

Applications are currently being accepted for 20 mixed-income units at a new rental on the Lower East Side designed by notable local architects ODA Architecture. Developed by Nexus Building Development Group, the 16-story mid-rise at 171 Chrystie Street features an intricate geometric design and a prime lower Manhattan location. New Yorkers earning 40, 60, and 130 percent of the area median income, or between $24,789 for a single person and $108,680 for a household of five, are eligible to apply for the apartments, which range from $677/month studios to $2,689/month one-bedrooms.
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This $7.5M historic townhouse is a well-preserved piece of 19th-century West Village

Photo credit: Empire Optix for Sotheby’s International Realty

March 23, 2022

This $7.5M historic townhouse is a well-preserved piece of 19th-century West Village

It would be difficult to pass by the landmarked townhouses of Grove Street and not take notice of this perfectly-preserved snapshot of life in the West Village of the 1800s. Asking $7,500,000, 4 Grove Street is one of four featured on a "Landmarks of New York" plaque that immortalizes these Greek Revival homes built between 1825 and 1834. The 2,200-square-foot, three-story brick townhouse has retained its 19th-century architecture, with arched entryways, exposed brick, and wood beams. Within is the highest level of timeless comfort in the form of renovated marble bathrooms, a greenhouse, a private outdoor garden, wood-burning fireplaces–and a wine cellar built into an underground street tunnel from the same era as this unusual home.
Tour this home filled with history

NYC architects reimagine the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Morningside Heights campus

All renderings courtesy of Michael Moran

March 17, 2022

NYC architects reimagine the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Morningside Heights campus

The Jewish Theological Seminary on Thursday released images of its newly redesigned campus in Morningside Heights. The campus was redesigned by the award-winning Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects who have reimagined it with the community-focused form of Judaism that JTS teaches and practices through new open, outward-facing architecture.
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New York City’s first net-zero energy library opens on Staten Island

All images courtesy of The New York Public Library

March 17, 2022

New York City’s first net-zero energy library opens on Staten Island

The New York Public Library on Wednesday opened its 14th branch on Staten Island and the first net-zero energy library in New York City. Located in the Bricktown Commons shopping center on the South Shore in Charleston, the $17 million, 10,000-square-foot building was designed by Ikon 5 Architects to be energy efficient, with solar panels providing nearly 100 percent of the energy the building will use. Managed by the city's Economic Development Corporation with the Gilbane Building Company, the new branch offers patrons a variety of amenities, including dedicated spaces for adults, teens, and children and flexible multi-purpose rooms for programs and classes.
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Renovated historic Brooklyn mansion with a 1,200-square-foot ballroom is back on the market for $13M

Photo credit: Alan Barry

March 15, 2022

Renovated historic Brooklyn mansion with a 1,200-square-foot ballroom is back on the market for $13M

In 2016, 6sqft featured the impossibly ornate and enormous 1900s mansion for sale at 1305 Albemarle Road. Set among the Prospect Park South neighborhood's stately free-standing Victorians, the home was a standout; in addition to its 11,000-square-foot interior, its two-story portico with massive fluted columns, jaw-dropping original interiors including a fabulous top-floor ballroom–and the fact that it shares a street with Michele Williams' house–all generated quite a buzz. The home, asking $3,000,000, sold in less than a day. After a stem-to-stern renovation of epic proportions, the historic city mansion is back on the market, this time for an equally epic $12,950,000.
Tour the latest and best version of this extra fancy Brooklyn mansion

Hochul recommends five historic places in NYC to be added to state and national registers

Photo showing storefront stands on Ninth Ave. looking south from just north of West 40th St., 1936.(Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library.

March 14, 2022

Hochul recommends five historic places in NYC to be added to state and national registers

Gov. Kathy Hochul last week announced 21 nominations for possible placement on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The list of nominations includes a diverse set of locations that are intricate to the history of New York. Nominations include early automobile manufacturing sites in Buffalo and Syracuse, a Mohawk Valley cemetery home to the author of the Pledge of Allegiance, and the only remaining 19-century textile mile in Troy. Of the total nominated places, five are located in New York City, including an abandoned Bronx train station designed by Cass Gilbert and an area in Hell's Kitchen once home to a famed open-air market.
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NYC to resume work on over 100 delayed parks projects this spring

All images courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office on Flickr

March 14, 2022

NYC to resume work on over 100 delayed parks projects this spring

Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday announced over 100 park projects halted due to the pandemic will resume work this spring. The city has invested $417 million in NYC Parks to break ground on the 104 projects, which is a 142 percent increase in new park projects compared to 2021. According to a press release, more than 86 percent of the new projects implement sustainable features like LED lighting, rain gardens, new trees, stormwater capture systems, and the use of recycled materials. Roughly 62 percent of these new projects are being installed in neighborhoods classified as underserved and are expected to be completed by the summer of 2023.
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A guide to the Gilded Age mansions of 5th Avenue’s millionaire row

The Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mansion on 57th Street and 5th Avenue, now demolished. Photo via A.D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library.

March 10, 2022

A guide to the Gilded Age mansions of 5th Avenue’s millionaire row

By Michelle Young

New York City's Fifth Avenue has always been pretty special, although you'd probably never guess that it began with a rather ordinary and functional name: Middle Road. Like the 1811 Commissioner's Plan for Manhattan, which laid out the city's future expansion in a rational manner, Middle Road was part of an earlier real estate plan by the City Council. As its name suggests, Middle Road was situated in the middle of a large land parcel that was sold by the council in 1785 to raise municipal funds for the newly established nation. Initially, it was the only road to provide access to this yet-undeveloped portion of Manhattan, but two additional roads were built later (eventually becoming Park Avenue and Sixth Avenue). The steady northwards march of upscale residences, and the retail to match, has its origins where Fifth Avenue literally begins: in the mansions on Washington Square Park. Madison Square was next, but it would take a combination of real-estate clairvoyance and social standing to firmly establish Fifth Avenue as the center of society.
More on how the gilded mansions of 5th Avenue came to be

Looking East; Rendering: DBOX

March 9, 2022

See the new $550M home for the New York Philharmonic, set to open in October

Nearly two decades after the project was first proposed, the New York Philharmonic's new state-of-the-art concert hall will open this October, two years ahead of schedule, officials announced Wednesday. The revamped David Geffen Hall aims to create a more intimate space, "a living room for New York City," as a press release describes, by moving the audience closer to the stage and improving sightlines. Plus, the project fixes the hall's poor acoustics and reduces the total number of seats by about 500. In addition to announcing the $550 million project was finishing on time, officials also released new renderings of the theater and public space.
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Architecture And Design

Jen Ray, Jason Forrest, “Find the Secret Data Message, NY Alive.” Photo credit: Data X Design.

March 7, 2022

Open Data Week highlights NYC’s Open Data Portal with art, design, squirrels and more

New York City loves an opportunity to show off its smarts and find innovative ways technology, art and daily life are intertwined. Data Through Design (DxD), an exhibition happening from March 5 - 13 throughout the five boroughs, is a perfect example. DxD is a central component of the broader NYC Open Data Week, which in turn highlights the city's Open Data Portal and the many things that can be done with access to data. Design and art events offer visitors a chance to interact with the city through life-sized art pieces. Even the city's bushy-tailed rodents get involved in the fun.
Art, design, rats and squirrels, this way

Brooklinen’s new towel collection brings NYC icons to the beach

Photo courtesy of Brooklinen

March 3, 2022

Brooklinen’s new towel collection brings NYC icons to the beach