With each new day that passes, the view of Midtown from southern Central Park is looking more like the renderings from several years ago. Today, we have a look at 111 West 57th Street, which is on its way to becoming the third-tallest skyscraper in New York City, surpassed only by One World Trade Center and Central Park Tower. It’s been three and a half months since YIMBY last reported on the soon-to-be supertall’s progress from Midtown. In that time, the tower has seen an incredible growth spurt and is now officially over halfway to its eventual 1,428-foot peak.
111 West 57th Street, rendering by Hayes Davidson and SHoP Architects
At over 700 feet up, the structure has now surpassed many of its historic neighbors. The terracotta, bronze, and glass facade is not yet noticeable from Central Park, though a small portion of the terracotta is visible on the building’s west side.
Looking at the tower from across Sheep’s Meadow, it matches the prominence of 53 West 53rd Street, a supertall development next to MoMA. It is rather incredible that a nearly topped-out 1,050-foot-tall tower positioned just six blocks away from Central Park can make such an unremarkable impact on the skyline.
This is a testament to the density of Midtown, but the lack of height is also due to the controversial decision to cut 200 feet from 53W53’s height in 2007.
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Please pardon me for using your space: I fully interested in its facade.
That is going to be one gorgeous building, likely the most striking on the skyline. The bronze and terra cotta design is so well done.
What is going on with the old Rizzoli site, east on 57th..anyone?
I”m so proud of you Spense. It’s great to be able to brag about you being part of this fantastic project. Here’s to many more in your future. Love
I LOVE terra cotta, and worked on multiple terra cotta restorations on prominent Chicago addresses for over 9 years, but why would anyone design a building that tall using Terra Cotta as the outer skin? The amount maintenance with the mortar joints, plus the dangers of terra cotta spalling due to freeze thaw – so many excellent products today that are maintenance free, and look almost as great – leave it to a designer who has no concept of the cost to maintain a material like this on such a tall building – once again, the egos are taller than the building’s they design.
These days terra cotta is typically deployed as a rain screen system without mortar joints to avoid the problems you have cited. I would suspect that that is the case here since the facade is a unitized curtain wall, which isn’t really conducive to a mortar set tile.
Plus: gorgeous building in correct scale for multiple super tower environments
Minus: it will, from my W100th St vantage, precisely cut the Empire State Building’s cherished nighlty light show vertically in half.
It’s just too slender, but it’ll probably grow on me just as 432 Park did.
The building is horrible, work is slow and seems beguiled by lawsuits and a Trumpesque owner. I don’t see this thing getting complete anytime soon. The concrete deck is at such a slow pace for a small job, it’s actually insane. From a real building going up Central Park Tower we just look down on them and snicker. Think about this , “ Would you get in an elevator installed by someone making 15$ and hour and doesn’t speak english going up over a 1000’. It takes them literally a week to do a floor, at such a small foot print don’t expect much from this JDS…. Why drive a overprice Daewoo, whe. You could drive a Maserati up the block…..
Cheap labor and horrible design and aesthetic look….