Twin residential towers with Art Moderne detailing and Renaissance-styled water towers on top.

Normandy Apartments

Originally a 10-story building at 219 East 42nd Street

33 story building at 235 East 42nd Street, designed in the International Style

Converted for residential use with 1,600 apartments and expanding 219 East 42nd Street to 29 stories.

The building was evacuated after reports of structural deterioration, after two columns began to buckle. Falling bricks from the facade were reported. This prompted fears of a collapse and required part of the additions to be rebuilt.

Image of Gensler plans for conversion by Streetsense&nbsp;

Pfizer Building

This three-story high digital clock records the date, hour, minute and second.  It takes up the entire Water Street facade of the building.  As part of the project, De Harak also reinvented other street furniture such as the red phone booth on the street corner.

Digital Clock, Phone Booth, and Benches

 It was originally designed as an office building (Goldman Sachs even had space there).  Like many buildings in Lower Manhattan, it has been converted into apartments.  It appears that the developer received a 421-g tax break 15 years ago when it was renovated and was required to include some rent regulated units.  There is a court case pending whereby two of the tenants, Bruce Hackney and Tim Smith, have discovered that they are actually paying market rents for what are officially regulated units.  They are not alone as many other landlords of other former Financial District office buildings availed themselves of a similar tax break 

10 Hanover Square

This building weighs in as one of the largest office buildings in New York at 3.5 million square feet of office space. It sits on a superblock assembled from four adjoining city blocks. Part of the reason for its bloat is that there is a 'privately owned public space' on its podium over what once was Front Street. There have been several owners and at one point it even had a branch of the Whitney Museum on the lower levels. It survived Superstorm Sandy. The storm surge deposited 32 million gallons of water flooding the three basement levels and part of the lobby.

Adding a 'Zoning Bonus' public plaza to the project meant that 55 Water Street would be able to be much larger. It was renovated into what is often described as one of New York's 'hidden parks and garden oases'. It has become considerably less 'hidden' as Lower Manhattan has been transformed into a residential neighborhood.

The design manipulates perspective with the sloping ground plane initially obscuring the view of the East River and the Harbor. As people move up the slope and through the dunes, the horizon gradually opens up to the East River and the graceful span of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Harbor are dramatically revealed.

55 Water Street

The third stop on the Great Crash of 1929: Tour of the Financial District is in front of 55 Water Street. The building was once the largest private office building in New York City. It is now home to the India House, which houses a large collection of maritime objects.

 Ken Smith talks about the collaboration in designing the plaza and light beacon. 

Bright and airy, 60 Broad combines classic American style and clean, modern lines. In addition to private offices (many of which have harbor views), 60 Broad features around  15 to 50 person suites that are easily customizable.  

60 Broad Street

The Citigroup Center, originally built for Citibank and now known as 601 Lexington Avenue, is a prominent office skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, NYC. It stands at 915 feet with 59 floors of office space.The building features a unique design, including four mid-wall stilts and a sloped roof. Initially facing a structural flaw, it underwent strengthening shortly after completion.The tower base includes a sunken plaza, shopping concourse, and entrances to a nearby church and subway station. Renamed 601 Lexington Avenue in the 2000s, it was designated a city landmark in 2016 and has undergone renovations. Despite early challenges, the Citigroup Center has received architectural acclaim.

601 Lexington Avenue

2 Boeing 767 jets flew into the Twin Towers in a coordinated act of terrorism. Both buildings collapsed; the attacks killed 2,753 victims. The largest civilian water evacuation in history at Ground Zero.

The original World Trade Center (WTC) was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed during the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.&nbsp;

Standing Atop Rubble with Retired New York City Firefighter Bob Beckwith, President George W. Bush Addresses Approximately 400 Police, Firemen and Rescue Workers by Bullhorn at the Site of the Collapsed World Trade Center in New York City

World Trade Center (WTC)

This Italianate-style cast-iron and stone warehouse was used for tins and metals.

In 1917, Emery Roth extended the stairway with a walkway to the roof and installed a new fire escape in the front of the building. Before that, in 1902, the lessee, Berlin Aniline Company, installed a new elevator shaft, framed the old hatchways on all floors, and replaced one of the ducts/chimneys with one constructed inside the building.&nbsp;

The historic 12,000-square-foot warehouse was restored and transformed into a large-scale exhibition, educational programming, and a gathering space from 2019 to 2024, as a part of the South Street Seaport Museum.&nbsp;The building now includes a new climate control system, infrastructure hardened against flooding, an elevator, and full accessibility to welcome all visitors into previously-inaccessible space on Water Street.

Before the Thomson Warehouse, this lot was occupied by two three-story buildings. The land on which they stood was originally part of a 1750 water lot grant, and until 1797, Water Street was the closest street to the water. In 1799, Front and Water Streets were considered to be among the principal streets in New York City.

A. A. Thomson & Co. Warehouse

In 1925 the railroad leased a 200 x 400 block extending to Lexington Avenue to investors who hired McKim, Mead &amp; White for what was then one of the biggest apartment houses in New York. Most of the 300 or more apartments, at $200 to $400 per month, ran from two to seven rooms, arranged in a rectangular doughnut shape around a centrally planted driveway area. With such a large structure, there were inevitable imperfections in tenant screening. In 1933 a police raid found a dozen men and women around a roulette table and $2,500 in chips; they were, however, in evening clothes. The 2001 book &ldquo;Letters From the Editor,&rdquo; an anthology of correspondence from Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker, includes one from 1934 objecting to an eviction notice for &ldquo;having persons of the opposite sex&rdquo; in his apartment overnight. Mr. Ross was between marriages, and noted that he had rented a three-bedroom apartment for just such a purpose, not &ldquo;to sleep in each one successively for two or three hours each night.&rdquo; John F Kennedy's father also leased an apartment to serve as campaign headquarters in New York.The building was demolished to make way for an office building now housing J. P. Morgan Chase's Investment Banking division.

277 Park Avenue

5 World Trade Center was originally a nine-story office building built. The steel-framed structure was 118 feet tall with a black exterior. &nbsp;The building featured an L-shaped design, housing a police desk and a major Borders bookstore. Notably, artist Joanna Gilman Hyde created a large rooftop mural in 1984.

Floors 4–9 suffered partial collapse and/or fire damage, while Floors 1–3 were not damaged during the September 11 attacks. The building was demolished in December later that year.

A new design has been announced for the new 5 World Trade Center to be developed by Silverstein Properties and Brookfield Properties. The new design calls for a 1,560,000 sf mixed-use 910-foot-tall &nbsp;tower.

5 World Trade Center

The MetLife Building is a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the International style by Richard Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi, the MetLife Building is 808 feet (246 m) tall with 59 stories. It was advertised as the world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening, with 2.4 million square feet (220,000 m2) of usable office space. As of 2021, the MetLife Building remains one of the 100 tallest buildings in the United States. Originally built as the headquarters for Pan American Airways, this 59-story octagonal-plan skyscraper straddles Park Ave. and dominates the air space of Grand Central and the Helmsley Building. At the time of its opening, the PanAm building had the most square-footage of office space in the world.

MetLife Building

between Water St. & Front St. and Old Slip & Gouverneur Lane

A family-run architecture firm that had major influence on the post-war development of Manhattan. The firm was run by 3 generations, starting with Emery Roth (1871 – 1948) who was an American architect who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 30s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. Emery Roth &amp; Sons frequently collaborated with other architects on large projects for which they were the architects of record.

Emery Roth & Sons

SITES

PLAYLISTS CURATED by Emery Roth & Sons