Carnegie Hall Tower
Carnegie Hall Tower is a skyscraper at 152 West 57th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1990 and designed by César Pelli, the building measures tall with 60 stories. Due to the presence of Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room on adjacent sites, the tower is only wide on 57th Street, making it among the world's most slender skyscrapers at its completion.
Carnegie Hall Tower is designed with a red-and-orange brick facade and cast-concrete decorations, both inspired by the older structure. The tower rises above a six-story base, which contains a setback from 57th Street. The structure has an L-shaped plan through the 42nd floor and a rectangular plan above that story. The superstructure is made of concrete, with a core made of two connected concrete tubes. The building was designed with for offices and for Carnegie Hall's offstage facilities. Each of the upper floors contains between. The design was largely praised by architectural critics upon its completion.
The site of Carnegie Hall Tower was occupied by the Rembrandt Apartments until 1963, after which it served as a parking lot. In late 1980, the corporation and the New York City government signed a memorandum of understanding, which allowed the potential development of a skyscraper on the lot. Following a failed proposal to combine the lot with another site to the east, Rockrose Development Corporation was selected as the developer in May 1985. Construction began in late 1987 after approvals from various city agencies. After the building opened, the upper floors were marketed to small tenants, and the tower had some of New York City's most expensive office space by the 21st century.
Site
Carnegie Hall Tower is at 152 West 57th Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue two blocks south of Central Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building's land lot covers, has a frontage of along 57th Street, and is deep. The rear of the building, on 56th Street, is deep.The building abuts Carnegie Hall to the west and the Russian Tea Room to the east. Other nearby buildings include Metropolitan Tower, 140 West 57th Street, and 130 West 57th Street to the east; The Briarcliffe to the northwest; the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing and One57 to the north; the Nippon Club Tower and Calvary Baptist Church to the northeast; and CitySpire and New York City Center to the south. Metropolitan Tower and Carnegie Hall Tower are only separated by the Russian Tea Room, which is wide. When both buildings were developed in the 1980s, the Russian Tea Room's owner Faith Stewart-Gordon had refused to sell her land. While Carnegie Hall Tower originally had a direct northward view of Central Park, much of the view was blocked when One57 was built in the 2010s.
The neighborhood was historically part of a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, following the opening of Carnegie Hall. Several buildings in the area were constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Rodin Studios, and the Osborne Apartments, as well as the demolished Sherwood Studios and Rembrandt. In addition, the area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. By the 21st century, the artistic hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park. The Rembrandt Apartments, built in 1881 and demolished in 1963, had occupied the site of Carnegie Hall Tower.
Architecture
Carnegie Hall Tower was designed by César Pelli and developed by the Rockrose Development Corporation. Brennan Beer Gorman was the architect of record. The tower was built by construction manager HRH Construction. In addition, Robert Rosenwasser Associates was the structural engineer, Cosentini Associates was the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, and Mesh & Juul Inc. was the lighting engineer. Carnegie Hall Tower is 757 feet tall and 60 stories high. As planned, it was tall with 59 stories.Form and facade
Carnegie Hall Tower contains a six-story base, above which rises the main tower. On 57th Street, the base of the building is only as tall as the original Carnegie Hall, which is seven stories high. The structure has an L-shaped plan through the 42nd floor, with a frontage of on the north and on the south. There is a single setback on the 43rd floor. Above that, the tower rises as a rectangular slab measuring wide and long. At the time of its completion, Carnegie Hall Tower was one of the world's most slender skyscrapers. As viewed from the west, Carnegie Hall Tower almost completely blocks the view of Metropolitan Tower to the east.Carnegie Hall Tower has a red-and-orange brick facade and cast-concrete decorations, both inspired by the older structure. This was a contrast to contemporary buildings that were being built with steel or glass facades. Douglas Davis wrote for Newsweek: "Unlike the postmoderns, Pelli pushed the new technology of glass, plastic and wafer-thin stone to its limit—part of what he called 'extreme modernism'". The brick was used to complement the reddish brown Roman brick used in Carnegie Hall. The tower's developers contemplated using oven-fired brick, similar to that used in Carnegie Hall, but ultimately determined that to be too expensive.
The facade of the base on 57th Street is made of conventional brick, with three courses of brick corresponding to of height. According to the project architect, Malcolm Roberts, the use of conventional brick was intended to make the building "humanly scaled to passersby". The base contains horizontal moldings that match both those of Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room. Horizontal bands run below and above the second story on 57th Street, matching the third floor of the Russian Tea Room. A decorative band runs near the top of the sixth story, complementing a broad terracotta frieze at Carnegie Hall; it is interrupted by a set of windows. An aluminum molding, painted to resemble terracotta, runs above Carnegie Hall's sixth floor.
Above the base, the facade uses larger brick, with two courses corresponding to 8 inches. According to Pelli, "We chose a variety of brick, not only to relate the tower to Carnegie Hall, but to pop this building out on the skyline". The brick comes in 11 colors, including bright red and dark green. There are precast concrete lintels above windows, sills, and vertical accents. Painted metal bands wrap around the building at intervals of six floors. The top of the shaft contains a frieze made of dark green glazed brick. The large cornice above the shaft is an open trellis of wide-flange steel sections. This cornice is composed of I-beams that project from the top story's facade.
Structural features
The superstructure is made of concrete. The core consists of two joined tubes of cast-in-place concrete, designed by engineer Jacob Grossman of Robert Rosenwasser Associates. Grossman had found that concrete was more efficient than steel in reducing sway for such a narrow structure; under the same wind forces, a steel structure of the same size would sway for longer. The tubes connect to each other at the tower's center, and east-west spandrel beams extend from the core, further stiffening the superstructure. The roof contains space for a tuned mass damper, which could be installed if it were ever needed. The exterior walls double as wind-resisting elements since the windows are spaced closely and have small dimensions, similar to Carnegie Hall itself. At the time of completion, Carnegie Hall Tower was New York City's second-tallest, and the world's eighth-tallest, concrete building.Interior
According to the New York City Department of City Planning, the building has of gross floor area. The building was designed with for offices and for Carnegie Hall. The rear of Carnegie Hall Tower contains offstage facilities for Carnegie Hall, spanning portions of the second through seventh stories.The lobby contains walls and floors made of green, red, and black marble, with brass accents and metal-grille lamps on the walls. The vaulted ceiling is composed of translucent panels separated by metal ribs. There are elevators on either side of the lobby, as well as a guard desk. The lobby is one of nine passageways that form 6½ Avenue, a set of full-block passageways from 51st to 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It was built as a "through-block connection" under the Special Midtown District, created in 1982. Carnegie Hall Tower's lobby is one of three parallel passageways on the same block; the others are in Metropolitan Tower and the Parker New York hotel to the east. While the district no longer allows more than two "through-block connections" on the same block, these passageways all predate the rule modification.
Carnegie Hall's operator, Carnegie Hall Corporation, demolished the walls separating the second-story and third-story spaces from the original hall. The tower includes the venue's first freight elevator; before the tower's construction, pianos at Carnegie Hall were carried manually on staircases. The leased space in the tower includes the East Room, a 200-seat dining room that covers, and the Club Room, which covers. The East Room and Club Room were subsequently renamed the Rohatyn Room and Shorin Club Room, respectively. On the third floor, next to the Weill Recital Hall in the original building, is a catering lounge. A musicians' lounge, rehearsal space, and dressing rooms were also provided. The upper floors contain between on each floor. A freight elevator and ten passenger elevators provide access to the upper floors.