52 Wooster Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 52 Wooster Street by Carter Horsley

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a certificate of appropriateness in September 2006 for a new building planned for 52 Wooster Street in SoHo that was distinguished by the split personality of its façades. 

The approved design had been revised by Arpad Baksa, the architect for the planned 6-story building that would rise on an existing parking lot at the southeast corner of Broome Street after the commission indicated at a hearing that July that it was concerned about the arrangement of the façades. 

Most of the commission members seemed generally pleased with the design in July, but were tempted to tinker.  Vice chairman Pablo E. Vengoechea indicated he has some “trouble with the material,” but Commissioner Steven Byrns said he was “relatively comfortable with the material,” adding that he liked the “sliver” on Broome Street where the adjoining building leans into it by about 22 inches because it shows the pecularity of old buildings.  

Mr. Byrns suggested that the metal grid façade on Wooster should be reduced to just two bays at the corner, while commissioner Margery Perlmutter, on the other hand, said “rather than reducing the metal, extend it more” along the Wooster Street frontage.

Mr. Byrns’s suggestion won out. 

The original plans called for five, full floor, three-bedroom residential condominium units with about 2,000 square feet each, but as built in 2015 the building has only 4 units. 

The developer is Continental Ventures whose other projects in the city have included Element at 555 West 59^th Street and MercerGreene at 92 Greene Street/109 Mercer Street. Jane Gol is the president of Continental Ventures. 

The interior design is by Grade. 

Bottom Line

This two-tone corner building in the center of SoHo has only four apartments with large great rooms and small rear terraces.

Description

The building has a narrow frontage of Broome Street and the design presented in July had half of its much longer frontage on Wooster Street in a light-gray grid façade treatment whose fenestration pattern would relate substantially to its immediate neighbor on Broome Street, an attractive cast-iron building.

On Wooster Street, the new building’s neighbor is a masonry structure and Mr. Baksa designed the new building’s adjoining façade in red masonry for its southern half to be contextual.

The building’s corner is faced with steel but most of its side-street frontage is faced with red masonry.

The building has an 11-foot-high lobby with Supal limestone slabs and stainless steel vertical reveals with Fior Di Bosco marble flooring. 

According to an October 16, 2015 article in The New York Times by C. J. Hughes, the building tries to “channel sunshine into dark recesses” by installing “small terraces at the rear walls of the three-bedrooms,” adding that “large windows in the master baths will overlook the terraces, so a soak in the tub can be enjoyed with some natural light.”

Amenities

The building has a virtual doorman, storage and a keyed elevator.

Apartments

Apartments have three bedrooms, Miele washers and dryers and lacquer and glass kitchen cabinetry and Sub-Zero refrigerators.  They have ceiling heights of more than 11 feet and fireplaces with marble surrounds.

The top two floors are a four-bedroom duplex. 

The apartments have 24-foot-long great rooms and open, 17-foot-long kitchens with islands and small rear terraces.