Building: Manhattan Place at 630 First Avenue in Midtown East

About Manhattan Place, 630 First Avenue
This mammoth, 35-story slab placed on a diagonal on its site is deceptive.

It appears larger than it is because its broad side faces southwest toward the Manhattan entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel across First Avenue.

The angling of the brown-brick and bronze-glass tower, which was completed in 1985, creates a large plaza facing west which is graced with a very impressive, tiered fountain. Thomas Balsley designed the fountain and its large, triangular plaza.

The developer, the Glick Organization, and the architect, Costas Kondylis, then design partner at Philip Birnbaum & Associates, also developed, four years later, the Horizon just to the north and both projects are unusually sleek for Manhattan residential towers.

The sleek, strongly patterned facades of both buildings are designed to also lessen the visual bulk and both are a cut, or two, above typical high-rise construction of the period, especially in a neighborhood traditionally considered less than prime.

The ends of Manhattan Place are angled and its broad façade is divided into six slightly protruding sections that provide bay windows. Both gestures are designed to mitigate the tower’s bulk, but the visual scale remains pretty much unrelieved because this is essentially a very large sheer tower without setbacks.

It is interesting that the developer and the architect made no special effort to tie the two large towers together schematically or thematically. Each one, however, reflects the exigencies of the city’s zoning and the pragmatic realities of the marketplace. Just to the south of Manhattan Place is a very large huge, boxy, white-brick residential project that was built a few years earlier.

The angling of Manhattan Place, therefore, not only maximizes more vistas for its residents and minimizes views of the large project to the south but also moves the major portion of the tower away from the elevated FDR drive overlooking the East River.

Description provided by building specialist Todd Vitolo

Architect:

Costas Kondylis & Partners

Developer:

The Glick Organization