One of the larger and more desirable Battery Park City apartment towers, this 26-story building was erected in 1986.

The building has 247 condominium apartments most of which face on the Esplanade and the Hudson River. It was designed by Ulrich Franzen and The Vilkas Group and is similar in massing to Liberty House directly across Rector Place that was designed by James Stewart Polshek & Partners.

While not quite as handsome as Liberty House, which has more views of the Statue of Liberty, the two buildings, whose main façades are angled, complement one another very nicely and are among the best at Battery Park City.

Like Liberty House, this red-brick tower steps down in setbacks on either side on the central, angled shaft, but unlike Liberty House this building has balconies. The balconies are recessed in the center of the main shaft and also along the side wings and create a textural composition that while not dramatic is pleasant and very contextual with its neighbors. The massing is well detailed and maximizes views for this fabulous location.

The city originally considered very grandiose "megastructure" plans for the development of this enormous landfill project created with earth excavated from the World Trade Center Site. These plans, which were abandoned as too monumental and expensive, called for hexagonal towers all connected at their base in a very bold design.

The first phase of housing at Battery Park City, Gateway Plaza, a large three-building complex on the south side of the North Cove, was not very exciting, but the second phase, of which this is a part, was far more successful in large part due to design guidelines written by Cooper Eckstut Associates whose esplanade is one of the greatest in the world. The second residential phase sought to combine the park ambiance of a Gramercy Park with a diversity of building types.

This building also fronts on Rector Park which was designed by Innocenti-Webel with Vollmer Associates a...