The Zinc Building, 475 Greenwich Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 475 Greenwich Street by Carter Horsley

Douglaston Development erected in 2008 this 7-story condominium apartment building at 475 Greenwich Street on a triangular block bounded by Canal and Watts Streets in TriBeCa.

Douglaston also built the green-glass residential tower at 325 Fifth Avenue and another residential complex at 555 West 23rd Street.

This site is directly over the Holland Tunnel and had been occupied by low-rise buildings that once housed a ceramic tile company and a car audio store.

In discussions with the TriBeCa committee of Community Board 1 the developers agreed not to lease any of the project's 8,000 square feet of retail space to nightclubs or bars.

Greenberg Farrow Architects designed the 21-unit building which has many of its windows slightly angled.

It is one of the very few free-standing new developments in Manhattan. It is very near Canal Park at the corner of Canal and West Streets, one of the city's oldest parks that was rededicated with a concert by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. It was dedicated at St. John's Square in 1870 and in 1971 the city lent the triangular plot to the agency that was building the Holland Tunnel. It was returned to the city four years later but the Sanitation Department used it to store trucks. The parks re-estasblishment resulted from a campaign by Carole de Saram, Richard Barnett and Jana Haimsohn who sued to have the park restored. The settlement of the case called for the state to pay the $2.7 million restoration costs and to double its size to about two-thirds of an acre.

Jeffrey E. Levine of Douglaston Development said apartments have ceilings higher than 10 feet and large windows and that they range in size from 1500 to 3000 square feet and the penthouses are duplexes.