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About The Orion, 350 West 42nd Street
One of the famous 1930s photographs of Manhattan shows a phalanx of tall towers marching across 42nd Street: the Chrysler Building, the Chanin Building, 500 Fifth Avenue, the Bush Terminal Building, the Chandler Building and the McGraw-Hill Building.
The McGraw-Hill Building was not the tallest of this group but it was then the furthest west and its green façade and horizontal fenestration pattern and sharp lines made it an instant midtown landmark.
Eventually, McGraw-Hill moved its headquarters to a new building on the Avenue of the Americas and the West 42nd Street Development Project finally coalesced into the new Times Square cluster of high-rise buildings at Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
More recently, tall residential towers have sprouted nearby but the "Green Giant," as the former McGraw-Hill Building was affectionately known, retained its splendid visual isolation.
This new tower, on which construction began in late 2004, however, eclipses the former McGraw-Hill building and not only hovers over it but its silvery blue glass façades out glisten it.
At 58-stories, this tower is considerably taller than the former McGraw-Hill Building and blocks out most of its views to the west as it rises on a narrow plot separated only by a low-rise U. S. Postal Service building from it.
Of course, protected views are extremely rare in the city and usually only occur adjacent to parks or waterfronts. Indeed, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has plans to develop a tower over its bus terminal on the east side of the former McGraw-Hill Building.
While one might lament the crowding of a famous and important skyscraper landmark, one might also be encouraged by the sleek design of this new tower, which will strongly reinforce the westward redevelopment of 42nd Street, the city's most famous and important cross-street.
While much tamer than Arquitectonica's colorful design for the Westin Hotel nearby on the northeast corner of Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street, this development significantly upgrades the ambiance of this neighborhood that in the 1960s had become one of the sleaziest in the country.
As "BrooklynRider" noted March 24, 2005 in the WiredNewYork.com Forum discussion board for this building, "The once lone McGraw Hill Building is being boxed in on all sides. It will hardly register on the skyline after this one goes up and NYTT [the new headquarters building of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets] is completed. Once the western sentinel to Times Square – it's day has finally come."
This building, it follows, then became the new "western sentinel to Times Square," although it should be noted that a couple of major development assemblages remain further west on 42nd Street.
This site is across the street from the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, which should help protect its stupendous views to the north and the bus terminal's ramps will help protect its equally impressive views to the south.
The developer of this project, which is the tallest building this far west of Eighth Avenue in midtown, is the Intell Management and Investment Company, which also developed the W Hotel in Times Square, and subsequently became known as Extell.
The architect was Cetra/Ruddy.
It contains about 550 condominium apartments and in March, 2005, prices ranged from about $425,000 for a 530-sq. ft. studio to about $1,700,000 for a 1,450-sq.ft, three-bedroom unit.
There is excellent nearby public transportation and several new towers are a few blocks to the north on Eighth Avenue.
This building has a health club, a doorman, a concierge, a garage, a resident's lounge, but no balconies and no sidewalk landscaping.
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