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About 1 Union Square South
One of the city's rare full-block developments, this large mixed-use project includes 240 rental apartments and was designed by Davis Brody Bond for The Related Companies.
The north facade of its base features a major public art work, "Metronome," created by Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel. It consists of red-brick masonry designed in circles around a hole that emits steam, a la the famous old Camel cigarette sign in Times Square, and this part of the design is dappled with bronze inlays. Adjacent to this large, dynamic sculptural "element," is a 15-digit number that is a clock that is also part of the installation. According to the building's website, "the 15 numbers of the digital clock display time going and coming relative to midnight. Read time going left to right and time coming in the opposite direction....The three numbers in between are a blue of moving numbers."
The art installation, which cost the developer more than $4 million, also includes a sculpture of a hand projecting from the facade that reportedly is very similar to a hand on a statue of George Washington in the park and the artists' website proclaims that the bronze hand "gestures a benediction."
The art work is 98 by 50 feet and originally emitted a "tympanic tone at noon," according to an September 19, 1999 article in The New York Times by Jeffrey Kastner. "To one side of the brick wall," the article continued, "a sphere slowly rotates in sync with the lunar phases. In the article, Tom Eccles, the director of New York City's Public Art Fund, described the installation as "the most prominent commission of a public artwork in the city since the Statue of Liberty." The fund and the Municipal Art Society had been asked by the Related Companies, the developer of the building, to suggest someone to design an art work for the project and the call for submission generated about 100 responses. Other submissions were made by Tom Otterness, Frank Stella and Matt Mullican.
Completed in 1998, this 27-story building offers stunning views of not only Union Square Park but also the midtown skyline to the north and the Lower Manhattan skyline to the south.
The transformation of this area was pioneered by another full-block development, Zeckendorf Towers, the four-towered project, on the north side of 14th Street on the east side of the park on the former site of the S. Klein's Department Store, one of the city's largest discount emporiums.
While many other fine landmarks such as Luchow's Restaurant and the Palladium discotheque, both on the block to the east of this building, were sadly replaced by facilities for New York University, this area is rich in history and architectural interest as well as being immensely popular for its many trendy restaurants. The dominant building in the area is the Con Edison Building at the foot of Irving Place, which culminates a few blocks to the north at Gramercy Park.
Union Square was famous in the 1930's for many union protests and political rallies but in the 1960's declined into a notorious drug haven. Its transformation has been remarkable and Park Avenue South, the name of Fourth Avenue above 14th Street, is lined with fashionable restaurants and stores and many commercial tenants in the publishing and advertising industries. The north side of Union Square now has a major bookstore, a major sporting goods store and a couple of blocks further north are a major home furnishings store and a cineplex.
This project has a very large cineplex as well as other retail. Public transportation is excellent and the building's location is hard to beat since it is at the foot of the Midtown South business district and the northeastern corner of Greenwich Village.
While many of the famous bookstores that once lined Fourth Avenue have gone, the Strand, perhaps the city's best bookstore for discounted art books as well as one of its largest, is two blocks to the south. The area not only houses many facilities of New York University but also is home to the New School for Social Research on 12th Street west of Fifth Avenue.
The building is a full service luxury building with many amenities.
It has a 24-hour concierge, a rooftop law and garden overlooking Union Square Park, and a fitness center. Apartments have floor-to-ceiling windows, individually controlled heating and air-conditioning, individual intrusion alarms, some terraces and many apartments have washers and dryers.
The building's residential entrance is on Fourth Avenue. The building's cineplex entrance is on 13th Street and University Place.
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