The Victory, 561 Tenth Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 561 Tenth Avenue by Carter Horsley

This 45-story rental apartment building at 561 Tenth Avenue on the northwest corner at 41^st Street in Hell’s Kitchen was built in 2002 by Sidney Fetner Associates and the Durst Organization.

It is known as The Victory and has 420 rental apartments and was designed by Schuman Lichtenstein Claman & Efron.

There is excellent cross-town bus service and there are many restaurants nearby on Ninth Avenue and Restaurant Row and the building is very convenient not only to the Theater District and the movie theaters of The Deuce (42nd Street) but also to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Bus Terminal.

Bottom Line

From the southwest, this tower looks a bit like an upside-down, Dragon Lady-style building with a slit skirt.  From other angles, it just another svelte residential tower with a ton of amenities across 41^st Street from an attractive church in the lee of bustling West 42^nd Street.

Description

This beige-brick tower’s southeast corner sports a flaring façade treatment in which the masonry recedes incrementally and horizontally as it rises from about the 25^th floor creating a V-shape appearance at the corner.  As the effect is not noticeably from many angles and is also quite high up, it has the mysterious air, to some, of an upside-down, slit-skirt “dragon-lady.”  It ends in corner windows that descend to the street and are repeated on the side-street base of the building that is indented above the second floor.

The façade has two other “niceties.”  The west section of the side-street façade doubles it width of a window bay at the same height as the “slit-skirt” begins at the corner.  The second effect is on the fifth floor of the tower’s avenue frontage where the windows are continuous and not divided into pier sections.

The top two floors of the tower at setback from its west end and are topped by a setback enclosed watertank enclosure clad in the same glass patterning of the rest of the tower.

It has two setbacks and many corner windows.

Its lobby has an angled concierge desk in front of a wall of angled elements and a dramatic entrance to the elevator bank.

It has a stainless-steel revolving door, sidewalk landscaping and discrete air-conditioners.

Amenities

It has a 24-attended lobby, a landscaped sundeck with barbecue facilities, valet parking, a fitness center and with half-court basketball, a golf driving range and putting green, a residents' lounge with billiards, a snack center, a business center and a garden.

Apartments

Apartment 45J is a two-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer that leads to a 20-foot-long living room with a corner bay windows, an open, pass-through kitchen and a windowed master bathroom.

Apartment 3D is an one-bedroom unit with a long entry foyer that passes the bedroom, a large terrace and a pass-through kitchen to the 18-foot-long living room.

Apartment 24H is a one-bedroom unit with an foyer that passes a pass-through kitchen and an 18-foot-long living room with an angled window wall.

Apartment 5L is a studio unit with an entry foyer that leads to a 12-foot-long den, a pass-through kitchen and an 18-foot-long living room with a corner bay window.