Carter's Review

One of the great keys to the success of Battery Park City as the city's most spectacular residential community is its mix of building types. The master plan developed by Cooper Eckstut & Associates established very elaborate design guidelines to achieve a high level of urban design and community cohesiveness but they still encouraged considerable leeway for individuality.

The guidelines were informally predicated on many of the city's best older architectural achievements, such as the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade, Gramercy Park and Riverside Drive. While some viewed the guidelines as embracing Post-Modern design and not conducive to more radical and modern designs, the high quality that has resulted has quashed most arguments.

This building and the Soundings at 280 Rector Place on the southeast corner at South End Avenue are both nine stories tall and part of a large and varied urban composition at a prime Battery Park City location. Both buildings were designed by the architectural firm of Bond Ryder James in an understated, neo-Georgian style that employed red-brick masonry over a two-story white stone base. The two buildings are very similar but different and this one has an arcaded base and narrow courses and vertical detailing on its top two floors while the Soundings boasts a high but shallow cornice element and and has wider courses and a simpler façade.

This 154-unit condominium was completed in 1987 and is very close to the Esplanade and a short walk from the fabulous Wintergarden and North Cove Marina at the World Financial Center. The building is unusual in that it does have the traditional rooftop watertank but uses a "direct upfeed" system and it also is illuminated at night. The building has exterior planting along Rector Street and a private garden with seating as well as a roof terrace with chaises lounges and trees. The building also has an exercise room and a toddlers' area, complete with a playhouse and slide.