Halcyon (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / East 51st Street, 305
 condominiums  Add category
 Upload a photo

360-foot, 32-story modernist residential building completed in 2015. Designed by SLCE, it originally broke ground in 2007, to a design by Garrett Gourlay, but due to a major accident involving a tower crane, construction was put on hold, and the tower was not completed until 2015. The original plans called for a 40-story building, later scaled up to 44 floors, but when construction resumed following the accident, it was reduced to its actual completed height, redesigned by SLCE Architects.

The tower is faced in limestone, light-grey and bronze-colored steel, and light-green-tinted glass. The ground floor is banded, with a deeply-recessed entry between two wings of the base. The entrance has glass doors set in a glass wall, covered by a metal canopy. A horizontal ribbed metal band course runs above the entrance and extends along the top of the ground floor on both wings flanking the entry. The narrower wing of the base to the east, which rises to four floors, has a garage entrance with a roll-down metal gate and a metal service door. The wider, 6-story section of the base at the west has bronze steel-framed plate-glass storefront windows at the west end, and continuing along the west facade on the avenue. A simple, bronze canopy extends over the storefront areas, just below the band course. There is another service door at the north end of the west facade.

The west facade is recessed above the ground floor in the middle, flanked by 6-story base wings - three bays wide on the south, and two bays wide on the north. The inner of each of these bays has four panes, with transoms, wrapping around the inner corner, with two panes on the inward-facing sidewalls of the wings. The other bays have triple-windows with transoms. Between the wings is a curtain wall of green-tinted glass and bronze framing. On the south facade on 51st Street the west wing of the base has four panes in the outer two bays, and triple-windows in the middle two bays, while the 4-story east wing has four panes in both bays. Between the two wings, the middle section has bands of narrow window panes with matching bronze framing, and silver metal spandrels between floors. This section continues up above the base to the roof line. On either side, the cladding is of the curtain-wall type, also seen on the tower portions of the rest of the four main facades. There is a setback on the west facade above the 20th floor, and another above the 30th.

The two penthouse levels at the top are also set-back, surrounded by terraces. The building contains 123 condominium units.

In March 2008, a construction crane collapsed on the site killing seven people. The building had reached 18 floors at the time, and the falling crane damaged multiple buildings across 51st Street. The accident occurred when workers were attaching a new steel collar to anchor it to the building at the 18th floor, as part of an operation to extend the crane upwards. Investigators say the prime suspect is a $50 piece of nylon that broke while lifting a 6-ton piece of steel.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°45'20"N   73°58'3"W
This article was last modified 7 years ago