Fire escapes have given a lot of New York City buildings a bad name, or, rather, a bad appearance - spindly, dark appendages tacked onto otherwise handsome facades with little regard to style or composition.
There are, of course, some attractive fire escapes, but they are the exception.
In its design for a new residential condominium, through-block development in East Harlem, the architectural firm of Grzywinski Pons has made an exterior staircase, which is what a fire escape is, an important design element by encasing it in the same materials as are employed in the building's solid-front balconies for use as a roof terrace access for the duplex penthouse apartment.
The development is planned by Rudd Realty for 411 East 115th Street and it will be a through-block project that will also have a facade on West 116th Street. The 116th Street facade, which has the angled roof-access exterior stair, is raised two stories on pilotis and has a facade that would make Donald Judd, a minimalist artist and an aficionado of protruding rectilinear boxes, probably drool at its sculptural quality, although probably scoff at its asymmetry. The 115th Street facade is very handsome with large square windows on the west side and smaller rectangular windows on the east side.
The project is anticipated to have 31 apartments.
Grzywinski Pons is a young architectural firm that attracted considerable attention with its design for THOR (The Hotel on Rivington Street), a major new landmark on the Lower East Side, and for its design of 115-119 Norfolk Street, a 7-story building with 24 apartments that has an open-top atrium entrance and a random design of fretted glass windows.
There are, of course, some attractive fire escapes, but they are the exception.
In its design for a new residential condominium, through-block development in East Harlem, the architectural firm of Grzywinski Pons has made an exterior staircase, which is what a fire escape is, an important design element by encasing it in the same materials as are employed in the building's solid-front balconies for use as a roof terrace access for the duplex penthouse apartment.
The development is planned by Rudd Realty for 411 East 115th Street and it will be a through-block project that will also have a facade on West 116th Street. The 116th Street facade, which has the angled roof-access exterior stair, is raised two stories on pilotis and has a facade that would make Donald Judd, a minimalist artist and an aficionado of protruding rectilinear boxes, probably drool at its sculptural quality, although probably scoff at its asymmetry. The 115th Street facade is very handsome with large square windows on the west side and smaller rectangular windows on the east side.
The project is anticipated to have 31 apartments.
Grzywinski Pons is a young architectural firm that attracted considerable attention with its design for THOR (The Hotel on Rivington Street), a major new landmark on the Lower East Side, and for its design of 115-119 Norfolk Street, a 7-story building with 24 apartments that has an open-top atrium entrance and a random design of fretted glass windows.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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