High Line 519, 519 West 23rd Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 519 West 23rd Street by Carter Horsley

South African architect Lindy Roy designed a very intriguing and elegant façade for the High Line 519 condominium apartment building at 519 West 23rd Street that employs curved, almost-amoeba-shaped, stainless-steel screens that overlap floors in the center of the building's glass façade.

Ms. Roy's firm is Roy Design. She recently designed Vitra USA's headquarters and Hotel QT at 125 West 45th Street near Times Square for André Balazs. She was the winner of the Museum of Modern Art/PSI Young Architects Competition in 2001. 

The building, which was developed by Sleepy Hudson, has 11 full-floor apartments

Bottom Line

Although it is a relatively small project, it was one of the first with flair along the High Line and it has full-floor apartments and is close to numerous excellent restaurants.  Two of the penthouses have wood-burning fireplaces.

Description

Why shouldn't the outside of a modern apartment building look like the inside of a Petri dish? 

The steel screens, or scrims, are in front of glass French doors, on the south façade of the building. The building's website described the screens as "perforated, embossed stainless steel balustrades [that] meander skyward, skimming the all-glass façade: a shimmering overlay distinct from the customary urban rhythms of stacked floor slabs and punched windows." 

The north façade of the building has balconies that overlook the High Line elevated railroad that is being transformed into a park. Dark wood paneling that the website proclaimed is "reminiscent of the deep rusty hue of the High Line trestle sheathes the building's west face."

Amenities

The building has a doorman and an elevator but no roof deck and no fitness center.

Apartments

Apartments have 10-foot-3-inch ceilings, video security and central multi-zone air-conditioning and recessed lighting and washer-dryers and walk-in closets. 

Two of the penthouses have wood-burning fireplaces and there is a garden duplex unit. 

The Varenna kitchens have Canapa lacquer and Tortora glass cabinetry, Sub-Zero refrigerators and wine coolers and Miele appliances. 

The windowed master bathrooms have teak and ebony benches for storage, six-foot cast-iron tubs and the shower floors are slatted teak. The master baths also has Toscoquattro macassar ebony vanities with two sinks and Stark 2 wall-hung water closet. 

Penthouse B has an entrance gallery that leads past an enclosed, skylit, 16-foot-long kitchen that opens to a 15-foot-wide dining room with a 22-foot-wide terrace.  The upper level also has a 20-foot-wide living room with an wood-burning fireplace and the lower level has three-bedrooms, one with an 11-foot-wide balcony.  The unit also has a roof terrace. 

The 8^th floor apartment is a two-bedroom unit has a very long gallery that leads to a 23-foot-long great room with a Juliette balcony and an open 15-foot-long kitchen.  The 18-foot-long master bedroom has an 11-foot side balcony.

Location

It is just to the west of the impressive stainless-steel framed residential building designed by Neil Denari known as High Line 23. 

It is very convenient to the High Line, the wonderful Lackawanna Barge pier and the Chelsea Piers as well as many restaurants, such as Trestle on Tenth, and art galleries.

There is very good bus transportation.