One High Line, 500 West 18th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 500 West 18th Street by Carter Horsley

This dramatic and twisting two-tower development at 76 Eleventh Avenue between 17th and 18th streets on the High Line and is known as One High Line.

It has 236 condominium apartments and a Faena hotel. 

It was designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the architect of the large Via 57 that resembles a tilted pyramid on West 57th Street. 

HFZ Capital Group, which is headed by Ziel Feldman, is the developer whose other projects in Manhattan include the conversions of the Belnord on West 86th Street, the Astor on Broadway and the Marquand on Madison Avenue. 

This first of the two buildings was completed in 2018. 

It is at the end of a three block stretch on 12th Avenue along the Hudson River that is the city's most impressive stretch of modern architecture.  It is just to the south of Frank O. Gehry's "sail" IAC Headquarters building that is across the street from Jean Nouvel's fractured glass residential tower at 100 Eleventh Avenue. 

Interiors in the taller building, which has have 87 apartments, have been designed by Gilles & Boissier, and Gabellini Sheppard Associates handled the interiors for the shorter building. 

The 908,250-square-foot development, which is also known as The Eleventh, has 181,890 square feet of commercial space in its base. 

One of the tallest projects along the High Line Elevated Park in Chelsea, these two twisting and tilting towers have unusual and impressive apartment layouts and hover over a Faena hotel, the luxury chain's first New York outpost.

Bottom Line

Unlike the two copper-faced towers facing the East River in midtown recently designed by SHOP Architects that are angled and connected by a skybridge, the design of this tilting development is more sinuous with significant, almost tango-esque swoops, a complex but subtly titillating neighbor to major modern landmarks by Frank O. Gehry and Jean Nouvel making the three-block stretch the city's most architecturally ambitious.

Description

The taller tower, which is 36 stories tall, is closer to the river and the shorter tower, which is 25 stories tall, is closer to the High Line. 

The development occupies a full block between 17th and 18th Streets. 

The two towers are connected by two two-story-high, slanted and angled skybridges, one of which houses a retractable movie screen. 

The building has a landscaped mid-block court and entrance marquees. 

The shorter tower is at a curve on the High Line and presents a vertical façade to passersby on it.  But from other angles these two towers appear gidily drunk - Manhattan's answer to "Saturday Night Fever." 

Despite their serious leans, the windows are not slanted but vertical within their bronze frames and a promotional rendering looking down between the two towers is full of exotic, inviting vertigo, a fine solution to the problem of the back of a building usually not offering the most dramatic and scenic vista. 

The west tower's upper floors have narrower windows than the east tower.  

The base of the west tower has a different and much narrower fenestration pattern than the rest of the development and is quite vertical.  The east tower, however, continues the swaying tilt of the upper tower.

Amenities

The project has 24-hour attended lobbies, a resident manager, a fitness center, a 75-foot-long glass-enclosed swimming pool, a wine tasting room and bar, a library, a bicycle room, storage, laundry and teen and children's rooms.

Apartments

Penthouse 32A is a five-bedroom unit in the taller tower with a 30-foot-wide entrance gallery that leads to a 47-foot-long great room, a 17-foot-wide loggia, a 25-foot-wide family room and a 19-foot-wide open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 21A is a four-bedroom unit in the taller tower with a 24-foot-long gallery that leads to a 35-foot-long angled great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 14C is a four-bedroom unit in the taller tower with a 19-foot-long entrance gallery that leads to a 26-foot-long great room with a kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 9G is a three-bedroom unit in the taller tower with a 12-foot-long entrance gallery that leads to a 27-foot-wide, angled great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 27D is a two-bedroom unit in the taller tower with a 10-foot-long gallery that leads to a 27-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 22B is a four-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with a 12-foot entrance gallery that leads to a 31-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 23E is a three-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with a 14-foot-long gallery next to an open kitchen with an island that is adjacent to a 36-foot-long angled great room. 

Apartment 16A is a two-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with a 9-foot-long gallery that leads to a 34-foot-long angled great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 14E is a two-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with an 8-foot-long gallery that leads to a 28-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 14D is a two-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with a 12-foot-wide gallery that leads to a 23-foot-long great room with an open kitchen with an island. 

Apartment 11C is a one-bedroom unit in the smaller tower with a 10-foot-long entry gallery that leads to a 18-foot-wide great room and an open kitchen with a breakfast bar.