One Madison Park is a luxury residential condominium tower at 22 East
23rd Street23rd Street may refer to:* 23rd Street , a street in New York City* 23rd Street , a street in Richmond, California.* 23rd Street Grounds, a former Chicago, Illinois baseball park used during the late 19th century...
, at the foot of Madison Avenue, across from Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District of
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
History
Although much of the area nearby is included in various historic districts – such as the Ladies Mile Historic District, Gramercy Park Historic District and
Madison Square North Historic DistrictThe Madison Square North Historic District is in Manhattan, New York City, and was created on June 26, 2001 by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission.Lying north and west of Madison Square Park, the district's boundaries are irregular...
– the location of One Madison Park is not, enabling the building to be constructed "as of right" with the transfer of
air rightsAir rights are a type of development right in real estate, referring to the empty space above a property. Generally speaking, owning or renting land or a building gives one the right to use and develop the air rights....
from the shorter buildings that surround the site.
When the building was originally announced, it was to be 47-stories and called "The Saya"; the name was changed to One Madison Park around the time that construction began in 2006. The building as constructed has 50 stories. At one point, a 22-story building designed by noted architect
Rem KoolhaasRemment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
was to be the "companion" to One Madison Square, on 22nd Street, but current plans call for an 11-story building designed by
Cetra/RuddyCetra/Ruddy is a New York-based architecture firm, a partnership of John Cetra and Nancy Ruddy. It is notable for the design of One Madison Park, a 50-story "sliver building" condominium tower on East 23rd Street at Madison Avenue, south of Madison Square Park....
, the firm that designed One Madison Park. Koolhaas designed the interiors of many of the condominium's amenities, which included a private screening room, an upscale restaurant run by chef
Charlie TrotterCharlie Trotter is a chef and restaurateur.-Biography:A graduate of New Trier High School, Trotter started cooking professionally in 1982 after earning a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For the next 5 years, he worked and studied in Chicago, San Francisco at...
, a spa and fitness room, and a wine cellar. The building, which contains 91 residential units, is topped by an 8300 square feet (771.1 m²) triplex penthouse, for which the original asking price was $45 million, which, when the building was first put on the market in 2007, included an outdoor terrace, a butler and a one-bedroom apartment for him on a lower floor.
As of April 2010, the building had topped out, but was still not complete, having run into financial difficulties. Sales of residential units had stopped, but the appointment of a receiver on April 15 allowed sales to start again. The building continues to be mired in financial and legal problems, including multiple lawsuits and allegations of fraud.
Architecture
The building was designed by the architectural firm
Cetra/RuddyCetra/Ruddy is a New York-based architecture firm, a partnership of John Cetra and Nancy Ruddy. It is notable for the design of One Madison Park, a 50-story "sliver building" condominium tower on East 23rd Street at Madison Avenue, south of Madison Square Park....
.
Nicolai OuroussoffNicolai Ouroussoff is the architecture critic for The New York Times.-Biography:Born in Boston, Massachusetts United States, he received a bachelor’s degree in Russian from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of ArchitectureThe protégé of the...
, the architecture critic for the
New York Times, called One Madison Park "a dazzling addition to a street that includes two of the city’s most celebrated skyscrapers:
Pierre LeBrunNapoleon Eugene Charles Henry LeBrun was an American architect. LeBrun is best known as the architect of several notable Philadelphia churches, including St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Twentieth Street ; the Seventh Presbyterian Church , the Scots Presbyterian Church , the Church of St...
’s 1909 Metropolitan Life Tower, across the street, and
Daniel BurnhamDaniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
's 1903
Flatiron buildingThe Flatiron Building, or Fuller Building, as it was originally called, is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, New York City and is considered to be a groundbreaking skyscraper. Upon completion in 1902 it was one of the tallest buildings in the city and the only skyscraper...
, a half block west. It jolts the neighborhood into the present." In the
New York ObserverThe New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
, Dana Rubinstein was somewhat less enthusiastic. Conceding that the tower was "not ugly", she wrote that the building is "in its overpowering, hubristic way, kind of pretty." One local resident called it "the turd in the punchbowl of Madison Square," but architect Dan Kaplan is quoted on a
Wall Street Journal weblog as saying that the building is an "elegant, thin stalk", and represents a continuation of a long-held vision of Manhattan. Kaplan does say, however, that the
sliver buildingSliver buildings are tall slender buildings constructed on lots with a narrow frontage, typically 45 feet or less. Over the past decade, one of the most remarkable advances in tall building design has been their construction to unprecedented slenderness ratios.The now defunct New York City Board of...
"turn[s] its back, a little bit, on the park".
See also
- Madison Square
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.The focus of the square is...
- 22nd Street (Manhattan)
- Flatiron District
- Met Life Tower
External links
- Official website
- "One Madison Square" at Curbed.com
- "In the Shadow of the Boom" profile of the building's financial and legal problems on New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
- Images on SkyscraperPage.com
- Image of the planned "companion" building on East 22nd Street designed by Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
- "One Madison Park" building information
- "One Madison Park" on Architecture News Plus
- "CetraRuddy" on Architecture News Plus