Skyscraper in Manhattan, New York
Metropolitan Tower is a mixed-use skyscraper at 146 West 57th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1987 and designed by SLCE Architects, the building measures tall with 68 stories. Metropolitan Tower is designed with a black-glass facade, with a rectangular 18-story base topped by a 48-story triangular tower. It was developed by Harry Macklowe.
Metropolitan Tower is next to Carnegie Hall Tower, separated from it only by the Russian Tea Room. The building has entrances at 57th and 56th Streets, connected by a passageway that forms part of 6½ Avenue. The base contains about of office space, with a triple-height mechanical area at the top. The office stories are owned as a single condominium, as are each of the 235 residential apartments in the upper stories. The residential tower resembles a right triangle in form, with a pointed edge facing north on 57th Street. Because of the high ceilings of the office stories, several floor numbers are skipped and the highest floor is numbered 78.
The site of Metropolitan Tower was occupied by low-rise buildings until 1982, when they were acquired by the Feinberg Realty and Construction Company and then Macklowe's company Macklowe Properties. Though Macklowe also tried to acquire what later became Carnegie Hall Tower's site, he was unable to obtain the Russian Tea Room between them. Construction began in 1984, and the residences were marketed to wealthy buyers after the building was completed. The office condominium has changed ownership several times in Metropolitan Tower's history. As of 2024[ [update]], the offices are owned by GDS Development Management and Sabal Investment Holdings.
Site.
Metropolitan Tower is at 146 West 57th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue two blocks south of Central Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building's land lot covers , has a frontage of along 57th Street, and is deep.
The building shares the city block with Russian Tea Room, Carnegie Hall, and Carnegie Hall Tower to the west, as well as 130 and 140 West 57th Street and the Parker New York hotel to the east. Other nearby buildings include the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing and One57 to the northwest; the Nippon Club Tower to the north; Calvary Baptist Church and 111 West 57th Street to the northeast; CitySpire and New York City Center to the south; and the 125 West 55th Street to the southeast. Metropolitan Tower and Carnegie Hall Tower are only separated by the Russian Tea Room, which is wide. When both buildings were developed in the 1980s, the Russian Tea Room's owner Faith Stewart-Gordon had refused to sell her land. While Metropolitan Tower originally had a direct northward view of Central Park, much of the view was blocked when One57 was built in the 2010s.
The neighborhood was historically part of a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall. Several buildings in the area were constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Rodin Studios, and the Osborne Apartments, as well as the demolished Sherwood Studios and Rembrandt. In addition, the area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. By the 21st century, the artistic hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park. The site of Metropolitan Tower was occupied by several low-rise buildings of four and five stories, including the Little Carnegie Theater, which closed in 1982.
Architecture.
Metropolitan Tower was designed by Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman &amp; Efron and was developed by Harry B. Macklowe, whose company Macklowe Properties still owns the building. Bill Derman of Polshek Partners and Sheldon Werdiger of Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill were also involved in Metropolitan Tower's design. The structure was built by construction manager HRH Construction. Metropolitan Tower is tall with 68 stories. At the time of its completion, Metropolitan Tower was New York City's tallest residential building, as well as the city's tallest reinforced concrete building.
Form and facade.
Metropolitan Tower consists of a 48-story triangular tower on top of an 18-story rectangular base. This includes a triple-height mechanical space above the base. The tower section is designed like a right triangle in plan, with its hypotenuse facing northeast. The northeast facade was meant to maximize views of both Central Park to the north and Fifth Avenue to the east. The shape was also required due to zoning restrictions on the site. Due to the proximity of other buildings, some views from Metropolitan Tower are blocked by CitySpire Center and Carnegie Hall Tower. Metropolitan Tower was built "as of right" without using special zoning provisions to allow a greater height than would be normally allowed. Metropolitan Tower does use the air rights over 140 West 57th Street, but the buildings' zoning lots were merged, so the building's site technically includes 140 West 57th Street as well.
The curtain wall panels are composed of glass panes and aluminum strips. They are designed so that, when assembled, they appear as an unbroken sheet of glass.There are 7,200 curtain-wall panels in total with 72,000 panes between them. The black glass panes measure . The panels at the base are made of reflective glass. while those in the tower are non-reflective and contain sections that could open to allow fresh air into the upper-story apartments.
As designed, a canopy on 57th Street led to a double-height entryway with Italian-marble floors and walls, as well as a doorway with columns in a modified Doric style. The entryway was tall and was largely covered by black glass similar to the rest of the facade. There was a sidewalk canopy only in front of the residential lobby. This caused confusion for office tenants, who frequently went into the residential lobby by mistake before the doorman asked them to leave. After a renovation in 2006, a cantilevered, gabled canopy was installed in front of the office lobby.
Structural features.
The foundation is on high-quality rock and uses spread footings capable of . Metropolitan Tower has a superstructure made of reinforced concrete. According to the Skyscraper Museum, this was part of a trend in which office buildings in Manhattan had steel superstructures, but residential buildings had reinforced concrete. Compared to steel, concrete was easier to mold, could reduce vibration when shaped into a large mass, and could be modified as it was being built. Overall, the tower uses of formwork, of concrete, and of steel rebar.
Metropolitan Tower's superstructure is divided into three sections, which use different strengths of concrete. The strongest concrete is used on floors 1 through 11, followed by floors 12 through 17, with the weakest concrete on and above floor 30. The columns and shear walls in each section are stronger than the floor slabs. The strength of the concrete ranges from , for the residential slabs on and above floor 30, to , for the shear walls on and below floor 11.
At the triple-height mechanical story, labeled as floor 17, loads from the upper stories are shifted onto columns at the lower stories. The mechanical story consists of a concrete slab with one mechanical duct embedded in it. The mechanical story contains steel reinforcing beams measuring or deep. Above the mechanical story are outriggers, which disperse the wind loads upon the building's exterior. On upper stories, Metropolitan Tower contains flat floor slabs, made of of stone concrete. The use of thick concrete helped stabilize the building against high winds, especially as compared to steel. Because Macklowe wanted to reduce the number of columns on the perimeter, the floors are supported by shear walls and columns. The shear walls are placed perpendicularly to the northeast side of the tower, wrapping around the floor slabs in a horseshoe layout.
Interior.
Though the building is physically 68 stories tall, the top floor is numbered 78. According to one of Macklowe's lawyers, this is because the base of the building has high ceilings. Macklowe said Donald Trump had inspired him to label the top floor with a higher number than the physical number of stories the building had. Floor number 13 is skipped, and floor 17 (containing mechanical equipment) is not labeled on the building's condominium offering plan. Floor numbers 18 through 29 are skipped completely. The first residential story, floor 30, would have been labeled as floor 18 under traditional counting methods and if the mechanical story was counted as one floor. The building has of office, retail, and residential space in total.
Lobby and office stories.
The building's entrances on 57th and 56th Streets are connected by a public passageway that forms part of 6½ Avenue. The passageway was built as a "through-block connection" under the Special Midtown District, created in 1982. It is the most direct route to CitySpire's passageway directly to the south, but parallel passageways exist in the Parker New York hotel to the east and Carnegie Hall Tower to the west. While the district no longer allows more than two "through-block connections" on the same block, these passageways all predate the rule modification. On the 56th Street side are a wall planter and four standalone square planters, all made of brick.
Originally, Metropolitan Tower's lobby was planned with a concierge station, as well as etched-glass doors connecting to an elevator bank. Several tapestries by Fernand Léger were used as decorations for the lobby's interior. In addition, there was a hanging light fixture made of glass and chrome, which was inspired by an early 20th-century artwork by Adolf Loos. The lobby itself had a green carpet on a black-granite floor, mohair panels on the walls, and a concierge desk with a mahogany veneer. The ground floor was designed with of retail space. During a 2006 renovation, the concierge station was relocated and replaced with a lit box that could change colors based on time of day, season, and weather. In addition, a LED sign, running the length of the lobby, was installed to display news, entertainment, sports, and other information.
The base contains about of office space. There are 17 stories in the base. The ceilings of each office story are tall, which is taller than the standard ceiling height of in residential structures in Manhattan. According to Macklowe, this made the base about as tall as a typical 30-story residential building, since what would have been the "18th floor" was more than above ground.
Apartments.
Metropolitan Tower was designed with 246 condominium apartments, which collectively comprise . As of 2012[ [update]], the tower has 235 condo apartments. The residential condos contain between one and five bedrooms and range from . Most of the condominiums are apartments with one to three bedrooms, but the upper stories have duplex units, including a duplex penthouse apartment. Each apartment has an entrance foyer and walk-in closets, as well as kitchens with glazed white tile floors. The units' bathrooms are furnished with marble walls and counters, showers, whirlpool tubs, bidets, and toilets. The units also included security systems, including emergency push-buttons and video intercoms. While many apartments have rectangular rooms, the diagonal northeast facade required that some apartments have triangular bedrooms and pentagonal living and dining rooms.
Floor 35 contained four model apartments designed by Andrée Putman, Juan Pablo Molyneux, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and Gensler with different themes. Putman's "sleek continental" unit in the northern corner, which she compared to a ship's prow, was designed with blond sycamore paneling, nickel plated hardware, and bookshelves made of sandblasted glass and black-epoxy-finished steel. Williams and Tsien designed their "hip contemporary" unit with metal screens, an aluminum mesh curtain, terrazzo floors, oak furniture, and silk upholstery. Gensler's "faux cowboy" unit included furnishings from Ralph Lauren and was targeted toward corporations looking for small apartments. Molyneux's unit was designed in a "plush romantic" style.
Some apartments were modified after the tower's opening, such as a group of three units combined by Williams and Tsien, who used metal furniture, varying color schemes, and ceiling decorations to mark boundaries between rooms. A corner unit was redesigned by Steven Holl with tilted walls and an airplane screen to "accompany the acute angles of the existing plan". Yet