Mount Sinai Hospital has reportedly signed a contract with Durst Fetner Residential for the redevelopment of some of its properties on East 102nd Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues.
The project involves not only the renovation of the pre-war apartment building at 1212 Fifth Avenue but also the development of an apartment tower next door in the middle of the block that will, according to an article in today's edition of The New York Post by Lois Weiss, be designed by Rafael Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli and Peter Claman of SCLE.
The new tower will be more than 500 feet high and the apartments will be on top of a 215-foot-high base of mechanical equipment for the hospital complex. The new tower, according to Ms. Weiss's article, will be "slightly taller, and more beautiful, than the hospital's Darth Vader-like Annenberg Building nearby at 99th Street."
Last October, the hospital received a zoning variance from the city's Board of Standards & Appeals for a 11-story Medical Center for Science and Medicine on Madison Avenue between 101st and 102nd Street and a 600-foot-high residential building at 4 East 102nd Street that would be built by the Durst Organization Inc., and Sidney Fetner. At that time, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the architect for the medical center for science and Medicine and the new mid-block tower on 102nd Street.
Roy O. Allen of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had been the architect for the rust-colored Annenberg Tower that is in the center of a two-block complex and that building has no actual street frontage but is a major element of the Upper Manhattan skyline. In "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial," Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman noted that "this behemoth of self-weathering Cor-ten steel and dark-tinted glass towered above its surroundings, a jarring and ominous intruder on the skyline when viewed from either Central Park or East Harlem." The authors also noted that "Norval White and Elliot Willensky (the authors of "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City") called the building 'cadaverous.'"
Ms. Weiss quoted Mr. Fetner as stating that he and the Durst organization are "respecting the rights" of the nine remaining residential tenants in the 16-story pre-war building, adding that "'In a perfect world, I would keep it as a rental,' he sighed, alluding to the expected high costs of the renovation."
An application assigned to a plan examiner of the Department of Buildings July 2, 2009 indicated that the new residential building will have 42 stories and 248 apartments.
The project involves not only the renovation of the pre-war apartment building at 1212 Fifth Avenue but also the development of an apartment tower next door in the middle of the block that will, according to an article in today's edition of The New York Post by Lois Weiss, be designed by Rafael Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli and Peter Claman of SCLE.
The new tower will be more than 500 feet high and the apartments will be on top of a 215-foot-high base of mechanical equipment for the hospital complex. The new tower, according to Ms. Weiss's article, will be "slightly taller, and more beautiful, than the hospital's Darth Vader-like Annenberg Building nearby at 99th Street."
Last October, the hospital received a zoning variance from the city's Board of Standards & Appeals for a 11-story Medical Center for Science and Medicine on Madison Avenue between 101st and 102nd Street and a 600-foot-high residential building at 4 East 102nd Street that would be built by the Durst Organization Inc., and Sidney Fetner. At that time, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was the architect for the medical center for science and Medicine and the new mid-block tower on 102nd Street.
Roy O. Allen of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had been the architect for the rust-colored Annenberg Tower that is in the center of a two-block complex and that building has no actual street frontage but is a major element of the Upper Manhattan skyline. In "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial," Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman noted that "this behemoth of self-weathering Cor-ten steel and dark-tinted glass towered above its surroundings, a jarring and ominous intruder on the skyline when viewed from either Central Park or East Harlem." The authors also noted that "Norval White and Elliot Willensky (the authors of "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City") called the building 'cadaverous.'"
Ms. Weiss quoted Mr. Fetner as stating that he and the Durst organization are "respecting the rights" of the nine remaining residential tenants in the 16-story pre-war building, adding that "'In a perfect world, I would keep it as a rental,' he sighed, alluding to the expected high costs of the renovation."
An application assigned to a plan examiner of the Department of Buildings July 2, 2009 indicated that the new residential building will have 42 stories and 248 apartments.
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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