Skip to Content
CityRealty Logo

Top 10 NYC Apartment Buildings Casting Shadows on Parks

Environmental awareness was not always a top priority in urban planning but the Time-Warner Center on Columbus Circle changed that when Bill Moyers and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis protested with others in Central Park against the evils of it spreading shadows threatening the sunshine of their lives.  Shady buildings such as the Top 10 New York City apartment buildings casting shadows on parks are no longer considered cool by many civic activists and community board committees worried about a little gloom in this film noir city.

 

#1 - Residences at the Mandarin Oriental, 80 Columbus Circle

Condo in Central Park West

Civic activists including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis strongly opposed a previous plan for this site on the west side of Columbus Circle for casting shadows on Central Park, but were pretty quiet when this mammoth, twin-towered development finally was built even though its massing was similar. 



#2 - 1 Central Park West

Condo in Central Park West

Casting shadows was not considered a major urban crime when this handsome tower redesigned by Philip Johnson was erected.



#3 - J.W. Marriott Essex House, 160 Central Park South

Condo in Midtown West

More people over the years are upset about its big red neon sign atop its Art Deco roof than any shadows this big building might cast on Central Park.



#4 - The San Remo, 145 Central Park West

Co-op in Central Park West

When it was erected, most people were so awed by the beauty of its twin towers that they hardly thought about its shadows on Central Park and if they did the relative thinness of the towers swept away all concerns.



#5 - 1 Union Square South

No fee rental in Flatiron/Union Square

Magicians know the value of diversion and this large building at the southeast corner of Union Square Park has a very large sculpture on its facade that puffs non-cigarette smoke to capture the attention of park-goers in its shadows.


Managed by Related Rentals

#6 - The Printing House, 421 Hudson Street

Condo in West Village

Taking a cue from the attention-grabbing basketball games nearby in an asphalt park on Sixth Avenue, this  apartment building provides a handsome backdrop for the softball games across the street in James Walker Park on which virtually all eyes are focused.



#7 - 2 Horatio Street

Co-op in West Village

This large apartment house was built in 1931 on the south side of Jackson Square Park in the West Village but its shadows have been virtually evaporated in the gleaming reflections of its very stunning and mutli-faceted new neighbor, One Jackson Square. 



#8 - Madison Green, 5 East 22nd Street

Condo in Flatiron/Union Square

This large and broad apartment building is across Broadway from the Flatiron Building and both are on 23rd Street across from Madison Square Park, but who is going to say anything bad about the wedge-shaped Flatiron, which is about the same height.



#9 - Sherman Square, 201 West 70th Street

Co-op in Broadway Corridor

This 42-story tower was one of the tallest on the Upper West Side when it was built in1972 overlooking the southern intersection of Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.



#10 - One Lincoln Plaza, 20 West 64th Street

Condo in Lincoln Center

This huge, angled, apartment tower casts shadows, depending on the time of day, on two parks, its own mid-block plaza, a small, triangular park across Broadway, and the large, central plaza at the Lincoln Center for the Perfomring Arts to the west.