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The Beekman Tower, partially in orange construction netting, looms over lower Manhattan (Mark Lennihan/AP)
Yesterday, developer Bruce Ratner and architect Frank Gehry celebrated the "topping off" of the 76-story Beekman Tower in lower Manhattan. A 10-pound bucket of concrete was lifted 900 feet onto the roof of the 1.1 million square foot skyscraper, which will have rental apartments, a pre-K through 8th grade public school, an ambulatory care center for NY Downtown Hospital, retail space, and public plazas.
Gehry, whose presence in Ratner's in-limbo Atlantic Yards project has been diminished, was in high spirits—he apparently pointed to the top of the building and said, "No Viagra." (It's his tallest building.) He told the Observer's Eliot Brown, "First of all, it’s a New York building, and so I respected the body of the New York skyscraper...We built many models of this. I holed myself up two days in a tall hotel room here and just looked at the skyline while I was designing it.” He also said the tower's undulation was inspired by Bernini.
While it may have been triumphant for Ratner to see progress on the skyscraper, he was served with another lawsuit to block the development of Atlantic Yards.
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it will be a pretty impressive structure when completed, with or without viagra.
so you want the new york state pavilion torn down (despite calling yourself a "preservationist"), and you criticize it as phallic... but frank gehry himself calls this building a dick and you love it.
pending troll status...
It's such a great looking building. My only question is why not taller? That bad boy could seriously soar above the skyline.
Keep your eyes peeled for 157 W 57th St. a 1,080 ft. tower designed by Christian De Portzamparc.
Are their any renderings online for that? I didn't see it on his website or on Curbed.
It's being developed 'as of right' so Extell didn't have to submit drawings for approval. In a Le Figaro article, De Portzamparc says it will be 330 meters high (1083')and renders of some of his other tall buildings show tapered, sleek steel and glass towers with lots of angles...so this will probably look something like that. The DOB filing is for 73 stories. Groundwork is already underway...
The facade they've built so far looks really awesome, and the reason for that is that it fits in with the existing neighborhood perfectly. It looks like it's supposed to be there. All architects and developers could learn from this project instead of building structures that are way the hell out of character for the surrounding area.
I'm looking at you Cooper Union Hotel.
Fits the neighborhood perfectly?
Theres... City Hall, Municipal, Park Row, Woolworth, St. Paul's Chapel, all within spitting distance...want me to keep going?
A better fit would be closer to Wall & Water, or even midtown, not civic center.
It's lower Manhattan. The whole area has practically been one big experiment for new forms of building tall over the past 100 years. Wasn't The World Building - one of the world's very first sky scrapers - built within spitting distance of Beekman? So, yeah, the neighborhood is pretty appropriate.
they should have made up for blocking woolworth by putting up some sort of lighted crown.
Its gonna look awesome when finished. Should hopefully take some attention away from the Verizon building.
No security objections by the NYPD???
that appears to be the first high rise residential building near 1 police plaza in like forever.
Its not THAT near to 1 Police Plaza. Its on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge overpass behind Pace. It won't even fall over that far.
it's close enough, it's right over the BB exit and Park Row which was closed due to "security" issues.
you have a point. I'm just saying there's no rhyme or reason when dealing with city agencies, especially the NYPD.
Looks good so far.
Looking forward to it when completed.
oh, Babyboomers and their viagra jokes. Never fails to make me, um-uh-um, laugh?
Frank Gehry on Viagra "reminds me of Bernini" too...the sewing machine.
Oops! "Bernina"? Call the fact check police!
Good god, do I hate this building. It looks so out of place there and takes away from the majesty of the Woolworth Building.
I feel like architecture is regressing back into the 1950s/60s mentality of building whatever is edgy or hip at the time without much consideration to it's surroundings or impact on the skyline. I'm looking at you, as-of-yet-uncompleted skyscraper at 56 Leonard Street.
i agree that there is often a lack of consideration for existing structures especially in NYC. it is always a balancing act between updating our structures without tearing the soul out of a nabe. but as MT said, this area has been an experiment for a long time and looks pretty slapdash already.
in any case, i think architects have enormous egos and will often design in a purely self-serving manner.
It's just what we needed in New York City -- another glitzy tower full of rich fatheads.
I like the building but it's too tall for its location. It looks absurd if you're viewing it from the west like from Broadway or City Hall Park. Best viewed from Brooklyn.
Is that area zoned for buildings of that height or did they get extra consideration for putting a public school in the base of the building and office space for NYU Downtown Hospital?
It's south of the bridge and east of city hall, what neighborhood would you consider that? Although I do agree that it would fit in next to the tower on Water St right across from the Seaport. But then we also have the new 7 WTC building on the other side of the park, and whatever decade they feel like finishing Ground Zero in, we'll have that building (those buildings?) too. Those are just as close to the places you mentioned, and will have a modern look and feel as well.
Also, they're almost done tearing down the dormitory across the corner from 7 WTC, and the Deutsche Bank building on the south side is coming along too. That's 2 more empty lots for towers, and they'll probably follow in the footsteps of the ones going up right now.
1WTC is already 120 feet high and growing; 4WTC has reached street level with more steel on the way; The PATH Station is underway with many lower level 'ribs' already in place, and the Memorial's polls are fully framed and construction moving apace.
It's not tall enough. From my window, it's not quite as tall as Trump's new SoHo hotel (an architectural abomination, compared with Beekman tower), visually, because Trump's is farther uptown. I was really hoping Beekman hadn't yet topped out... So Trump remains the tallest, ugliest tower in the downtown skyline.
And it may not be to everyone's taste, but at least the Beekman has _some_ architectural interest, compared with so much of what gets built in Manhattan (generic boxes). And it most certainly is in an appropriate neighborhood in which to build a tall tower. If you can't build a tower below Chambers St. in Manhattan (so long as you don't tear down anything historic), then you've forgotten one of the main things that make this area unique and special in the first place (skyscrapers!), and you've encouraged developers to push for too-tall buildings in neighborhoods in which low heights are key to their identity and quality of life. If you want to see the sun before noon, then just take a walk north of Chambers.