53W53
53 West 53 is a supertall skyscraper at 53 West 53rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art. It was developed by the real estate companies Pontiac Land Group and Hines. With a height of, 53 West 53 is the twelfth-tallest completed building in the city as of 2025.
53 West 53 was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and contains 77 stories; the highest story is numbered 87 and some floor numbers are skipped. The facade is set within a concrete diagrid that provides structural support for the building. The northern and southern facades slope inward to a set of five spires at different heights. The building is mixed-use, with MoMA gallery space and a private restaurant at the base. The residential portion of the tower contains 145 condominiums with interiors designed by Thierry Despont. There are also amenities spaces on floors 12 through 16 and a lounge on floors 46 and 47.
Plans for Tower Verre, a skyscraper at 53 West 53rd Street, were announced in 2007 in conjunction with an expansion of MoMA. The original design was shortened by in 2009 after protests over the original height. Construction was still delayed until 2013 due to difficulties in securing financing. Work began in late 2014 and sales started the next year. It was officially topped out in mid-2018, and construction was officially completed in early 2020, though a majority of the units remained unsold at the building's completion.
Site
53 West 53 is at 53 West 53rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along the northern side of 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The land lot covers or. The site has a frontage of on 53rd Street to the south and on 54th Street to the north, with a depth of between these two streets.Nearby buildings include the CBS Building to the south, Credit Lyonnais Building to the southwest, New York Hilton Midtown to the west, 1345 Avenue of the Americas to the northwest, the Warwick New York Hotel to the north, 46 West 55th Street to the northeast, and the Museum of Modern Art to the east. 53 West 53 is one of several major developments in the northern section of Midtown Manhattan that are collectively dubbed Billionaires' Row by the media. Other buildings along Billionaires' Row include 432 Park Avenue, 111 West 57th Street, One57, and Central Park Tower on 57th Street, as well as 220 Central Park South on Central Park South.
Architecture
Officially named 53 West 53, the building was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel as a 77-story, 145-unit tower. The building has 77 physical stories. The top story is numbered 87 and several floor numbers are skipped. There are also two basement levels; the cellar immediately below ground is used as storage by MoMA, while the subcellar beneath it contains mechanical rooms for the upper stories. The highest occupied story is above ground. The tower technically measures tall from the lobby floor to the tip of its tallest spire. This makes it the tenth-tallest completed building in the city as of 2019.The site is split between three different zoning districts, each of which had different setback requirements. During planning, Nouvel's team designed a sloping structure to follow the setback requirements and various parcel restrictions on the site. The ultimate design for the building has five spires.
Facade
The building's facade is framed within a concrete diagrid, which shifts the tower's structural system to the exterior, thereby allowing more open space for the interior of each floor. The diagrid was designed by WSP Global, which spent over a year modifying the details of the design. Nouvel and the WSP engineers collaborated extensively on the superstructure's design because Nouvel wanted 53 West 53's facade to reflect the arrangement of the diagrid. The diagrid includes vertical, diagonal, and horizontal girders to carry weight loads while also stiffening the frame against wind. The design of the facade around the diagrid was inspired by drawings made by Hugh Ferriss.As designed, the north and south facades slope away from the street as they rise, while the west and east facades are perpendicular to ground level. The exterior curtain wall is made of 5,747 triple-glazed panels manufactured in Germany. The curtain wall consists of glass panes, aluminum frames, and ventilation grates. Mockups of the windows were tested in a wind tunnel before being installed. The curtain wall is anchored to the concrete floor slabs. Part of the lower stories' facade, and some portions of the west and east facades that abut other buildings, are made of masonry. Custom window blinds were required for the inwardly angled facades. Most of the facade is maintained by a window-washing rig on the bulkhead, but the lowest stories of the building are maintained by cranes, and the storefront windows are washed at street level.
The girders consist of concrete poured around steel pieces of rebar. The diagrid was initially planned to be made of steel, but concrete was ultimately used because of concerns over cost, ceiling heights, weight, and collaboration with labor unions. According to WSP vice president Gustavo Oliveira, difficulties arose over how to connect the rebar within the concrete girders at each of the nodes where girders intersect. Furthermore, there were approximately three dozen nodes where at least four girders intersect; the largest node, on the north side of the sixth floor, connected six girders. Therefore, for each node, a steel core was created and rebar pieces were anchored to that core. The concrete was poured in place, except for the pinnacles, which were prefabricated. The concrete had to be poured gradually because the steel cores were almost impossible to reposition after the concrete had dried up.
Structural features
Foundation
Langan, the geotechnical engineer, monitored the underlying bedrock and conducted seismic planning. The ground underneath the building consists of of fill, followed by of sand, of decomposed mica schist, and a hard layer of mica schist bedrock. Much of the underlying ground in Midtown Manhattan could support loads of, but the western portion of 53 West 53's site had formerly contained a stream. Groundwater was present below ground level at the site. The weathered mica on the western part of the site could only support. Furthermore, the site abutted several adjacent buildings and the New York City Subway's 53rd Street Tunnel. Overall, the depth of sufficiently load-bearing bedrock under 53 West 53's site varied as much as.The site was excavated using 33 reinforced concrete caissons each measuring across. The caissons descend at least deep. Where the site abutted the subway tunnel, the caissons descend deep, the same depth as the subway tunnel. Some "high-capacity" caissons were drilled at the western end of the site to shift some of the loads to below the tunnel. The floor of the sub-cellar is placed on a grade/mat foundation. The foundation is surrounded by concrete walls that are on average thick. The shear walls and columns on the eastern boundary of the site are placed on concrete footings that rest directly on the bedrock, while the shear walls and columns on the southern and western boundaries are placed on concrete caps above the caissons. The basement story is composed of a concrete slab, while the ground story is made of a concrete slab.
Superstructure
The main contractor for the superstructure was Lendlease. The floor slabs for 53 West 53 are generally made of cast concrete thick. While most of the tower's support columns are along the tower's perimeter, there are also some interior columns. Steel trusses transfer loads from the interior columns to a shear wall core along the eastern edge of the tower. The northeast corner of 53 West 53 also includes a cantilever above an emergency electrical generator owned by Con Edison. A portion of the MoMA space, on floors 2, 4, and 5, is supported by two columns, one of which is a steel column measuring. Massive steel trusses on the sixth and eighth stories divert the loads above the MoMA space. There is a crawl space measuring high above the 5th floor. Above that is a mechanical story with separate sections for MoMA and the residential units.At the 35th through 37th stories, a outrigger wall runs around the tower, connecting the diagrid and shear wall. Mechanical rooms are placed within these floors, dividing 53 West 53 into two segments with separate electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems. One mechanical system serves the floors above these rooms while the other system serves the floors below. There are five steel spires above floors 21, 24, 73, 83, and 86; their steel construction allowed greater flexibility for constructing the roof. To stiffen the top of the building, the 73rd, 74th, and 76th stories consist of concrete slabs. A tuned mass damper was installed in the double-height 74th story to provide stability against high winds or earthquakes.
Interior
53 West 53 has a total floor area of approximately. The building is mixed-use, with condominiums, museum gallery space, and a private restaurant at the base. Three of the lowest stories are used as MoMA gallery space. The tower has four passenger elevators; two serve the lower residences on floors 12 through 40, while two serve the upper residences on and above floor 48. All four elevators serve the lobby, floors 12 through 16, and floor 46. In addition, there are four service elevators: one for the lower residences, one for the upper residences, and two in the basement levels. There are also three elevators within individual suites.Lower floors
The entrances to the building are through 53rd and 54th Streets. The lobby contains of space and is divided into three sections: an entrance foyer, a main lobby, and an elevator lobby. The main lobby has a coffered ceiling as well as an oak floor with inlaid marble tiles. The walls of the lobby are covered with oak paneling, and the ceiling is supported by the diagonal columns of the diagrid. The ground floor next to the lobby also includes a library with a fireplace. There is also an restaurant named 53, which occupies the basement and part of the ground level. The 53 restaurant, designed by Lionel Ohayon, contains around 36 brightly-colored "fins" that curve across the restaurant's ceiling and walls.MoMA's gallery space is on floors 2, 4, and 5. The gallery space includes the Daylit Gallery on floor 2 and the Studio on floors 4 and 5. There is no third story because the floor numbers follow those of the main MoMA building, and MoMA's third story does not extend into 53 West 53. The MoMA galleries are internally disconnected from the rest of 53 West 53 and are not served by the building's elevators. The only exits from the MoMA space are through the main building to the east, as well as emergency exits that lead directly to 53rd and 54th Streets. The gallery space covers. A terrace extends from the south facade at the sixth story.