The Soundings, 280 Rector Place: Review and Ratings

Review of 280 Rector Place by Carter Horsley

One of the great keys to the success of Battery Park City as the city's most spectacular residential community is its mix of building types. The master plan developed by Cooper Eckstut & Associates established very elaborate design guidelines to achieve a high level of urban design and community cohesiveness but they still left and encouraged considerable leeway for individuality.

The guidelines were informally predicated on many of the city's best older architectural achievements, such as the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade, Gramercy Park and Riverside Drive. While some viewed the guidelines as embracing Post-Modern design and not conducive to more radical and modern designs, the high quality that has resulted has quashed most arguments.

This building and Battery Pointe at 300 Rector Place on the southwest corner at South End Avenue are both nine stories tall and part of a large and varied urban composition at a prime Battery Park City location. Both buildings were designed by the architectural firm of Bond Ryder James in an understated, neo-Georgian style that employed red-brick masonry over a two-story white stone base. The two buildings are very similar but different and this one boasts a high but shallow cornice element and wider courses whereas Battery Pointe's are narrower. Battery Pointe, on the other hand, has an arcaded base and vertical detailing on its top two floors while this building's façade is a bit simpler.

This 121-unit condominium was completed in 1987 and is very close to the Esplanade and a short walk from the fabulous Wintergarden and North Cove Marina at the World Financial Center.