South Park Tower, 124 West 60th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 124 West 60th Street by Carter Horsley

This mammoth and prominent rental apartment tower has a very distinctive, asymmetrically stepped roofline and was the tallest building in the Lincoln Center area when it was erected in 1986.

The 52-story building was developed by the Brodsky Organization, which has built many of the area's major residential buildings in the late 1980's and the 1990's.

The building's slab form, which runs south to north, recalls to a certain extent the massing of the great skyscraper at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. While the towers are stylistically quite different in materials and detailing, the use of complex and subtle massing is similar.

This building is distinguished by its corner windows and its columns of gently curved balconies. This building was designed by Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron.

It has a health club and pool, a doorman, a concierge, a bicycle room, a garage, video security, a sundeck and valet service. There are six to 13 apartments a floor in the building, which has a handsome lobby and entrance.

Close to Columbus Circle, many of the apartments facing east have vistas down Central Park South to the famous crowns of the Sherry-Netherlands and Pierre Hotels on Fifth Avenue through the separation between the two towers of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

While that complex does obscure many views, it has improved the ambiance and popularity of this area, which is already known for its great cultural facilities, excellent transportation and many restaurants and stores. It also has a major Whole Foods store in its basement.

Since this building, which is known as South Park Tower and has an address of 124 West 60th Street, was erected, Donald Trump and Extell Development have built many new high-rise residential towers to the north along the Hudson River.

While there has been substantial new development in this building's immediate vicinity, much of it has been undertaken by the same developer with the result that views and orientations have not been totally ignored and the buildings are an informal enclave of luxury towers.