This strikingly tall and narrow 60-story condo tower is to be known as One Madison Park and will smartly have its entrance on the leafy block of 23 East 22nd Street in Manhattan's Flatiron district. Only 100 feet shorter than the nearby Clock Tower building, One Madison Park will have just 70 condominium apartments (no more than two per floor). Units will range from one to four bedrooms, with a triplex penthouse. The glassy curtain wall will be divided into discreet sections as it rises, almost like stacked cubes. Views up Madison Avenue and toward the midtown skyline will be unobstructed. A second condo tower designed by Rem Koolhaas will sit on 22nd Street. After the jump another view of the condo tower in context from the busier 23rd Street side, and a look at that mad Madison Avenue view.
Andre Balazs has been one busy bee. With a new hotel in the works for the Meatpacking District, and following closely on the heels of his 
Why does it seem as if every developer is asking for sparkling glass curtain walls these days? Perhaps it's something in the water. More likely, the splash of attention gained by the Meier towers in the West Village has had a heavy influence on developer's view of the market, and maybe even caused them to reassess the viability of high design. Clearly there is now a comfort level (dare we say a demand?) among home buyers for stark, modernist, non-historically-based designs. Under inspection here is a project now rising at 423 West Street, just up the road from those Meier towers about which so much has been written. Hudson Blue (above right) is a ten-story 8-unit condo on a lot just 23.5 feet wide, formerly occupied by the Pit Stop Auto Repair garage. The architect for this blue-gray sliver of glass and steel is Patrick Han. Last year the developer Michael Yanko told The Villager that his ideal customers "want some privacy--not like the wild scene in the Meier buildings." We're not quite sure what that means exactly. Below is a rendering of the lobby. Click through to the Corcoran listing to view more images and take an animated virtual tour.
Continuing with our West Village theme, architect Daniel Goldner has now placed on-line a large color rendering of his design for a building to fill a narrow lot at 163 Charles Street. The site sits directly behind the just completed Richard Meier tower, and was recently dubbed (unfairly, we think) "Mini Meier" by the New York Times. To our eyes Goldner's design seems competent in its own right, and comes after the property's previous owner (art dealer Kenny Schachter) had commissioned Zaha Hadid to design an earlier plan for the site. The new design appears to have retained at least some of the intersecting planes associated with Hadid's work, while also carving out a triplex unit, two duplexes, and ground floor commercial space. The project was recently the target of a demonstration by preservationists who are seeking to maintain the area's scale and protect the surviving examples of 19th century houses and stables. To see a larger view of the rendering click through to the link below.
Thin is in. What do you call a trend born of necessity? When new construction fills small odd-lots and leftover spaces it usually means the most desirable neighborhoods are fast approaching a state of being fully "built-out." It also means the price per square foot is just too good for developers to pass up. Do the math, as they say in bad action movie spec scripts. 
next door to the much loved Ear Inn. 
