Gotham West (New York City, New York)

 shopping mall, apartment building, 2012_construction

Massive, nearly full-block postmodern residential/retail development completed in 2012. Designed by SCLE, it consists of a 321-foot, 31-story L-shaped tower at the west end. Adjacent to the tower, a 12-story mid-rise building extends east along 45th Street, with a 7-story mid-rise along 44th Street. These enclose a central courtyard whose eastern wall is a north-south oriented building section of 14 floors that is also L-shaped and continued farther along 45th Street. Near the east end, an older 5-story Beaux-Arts building is incorporated into the complex, originally completed in 1905 as a school building, and now converted to condominiums and renamed The Inkwell, with completion in 2016. At the far east end of the development two 14-story buildings are situated atop a platform over Amtrak train tracks, on fronting 45th Street and the other West 44th, with a courtyard in between.

The main tower contains 700 apartment units, along with a 200-space parking garage, and 17,000-square-feet of retail space. The adjacent mid-rises have 297 affordable housing units available to low, moderate and middle income families, and the two buildings at the eastern end include an additional 243 units of affordable housing. The Inkwell contains 18 condominium units.

All of the cladding of the newer buildings includes red brick, dark-grey brick, and dark-grey and silver metal. The 1-story base of the tower is metal panels of both colors, and houses the Gotham West Market. Its main entrance is centered on the avenue, with two sets of metal-framed glass double-doors between sidelights and below transoms and a metal canopy. There are metal-and-glass storefronts to either side, and at both ends the tower steps back in a series of three corners. Above the ground floor these corners have metal cladding and large windows with metal mullions; both the spandrels and mullions are dark-grey. The end bays terminate above the 7th floor, and the first corner bays, as well as all the middle bays, set back above the 7th floor, with the middle corner bays continuing up the rest of the height of the tower to the roof line, still with metal cladding. Toward the center, the next three bays on the north and south have brick cladding on the upper floors, with double-windows that have grey brick spandrels below them that include metal air-conditioning vents. These two sections are framed by a silver metal band around the bottom, outer edge, and top, where they set back. The center two bays of the facade (above the market's entrance canopy) have metal cladding. This narrows to a single metal-clad bay in the center above the 7th floor. The next bays, clad in brick, change to wide triple-window bays divided into halves by a central grey metal panel at the inner two, while the outer brick bay has double-windows. The center bay as well as the southern bays all end at the 28th floor, with the top two clad in glass-and-metal curtain walls like the end bays. The northern bays extend to the 31st floor, with the three brick bays each having an enormous, white concrete balcony canopy projecting outward.

The north facade of the tower is glass and metal at the two west end bays. From the 2nd-7th floors, the next four bays are brick with double-windows - the first one grey, and the others red, with silver metal framing the bottom, west edge, and top. A matching section of four bays to the east is separated by a central, recessed, metal bay with off-set double-windows.Here the ground floor is clad in rusticated white stone, with a very long, low window band. The main residential entrance (550 West 45th Street) begins at the east end of this section, with a revolving glass door flanked by traditional glass doors and windows, set below a metal-and-wood canopy. Another slightly-recessed curtain wall bay above signals the beginning of the mid-rise sections. Above the setback at the tower, the upper floors have two wide bays on either side separated by a continuation of the central glass-and-metal curtain wall bay. These each have two sets of double-windows separated by grey metal panels, and at both ends is a curtain wall bay with triple-windows. The east half ends at the 28th floor, while the west half extends to the 31st, with another pair of large balcony canopies at the top floor.

Along 45th Street the mid-rise sections continue with five groups of four or five bays, each in red brick except for the western bay of each group, which is dark-grey. They hall have double-windows, and there are slightly-recessed, curtain wall bays of off-set double-windows separating each group, with a white metal band lining the east edge of each of these. There is a final 3-bay section at the east end, separated by a thinner curtain-wall section with single-windows, and a wider silver metal panel strip. These groups all set back above the 9th floor. The western two have similar cladding on the set-back 10th-12th floors, while those farther east belong to the north wing of the 14-story, L-shaped mid-rise. The ground floor is mostly clad in rusticated white stone, with a black granite water table receding toward the east, and bays of double-windows. Closest to the tower is the entrance to the underground parking garage. The entrance to the mid-rise section (530 West 45th) is in the 2nd group from the east, where the groudn-floor cladding changes to silver metal panels. The entry has a revolving door on the left, and glass double-doors on the right.

The south facade of the tower, on 44th Street, is similar to the north side at the lower floors. The top floors have only one wide brick bay with a double-window at its right side, followed by two larger panes both separated by a grey metal panel. At the west end is a curtain wall section, and to the east is a narrow bay of single-windows, a wide white metal strip, and another curtain wall section at the east end. The brick cladding ends at the 26th floor, but the white strip extends up to the lower roof line at the 28th. The lower floors have the same grouping of 4-bay sections (where the first is grey brick, and the rest red brick) separated by slightly-recessed glass-and-metal bays. There are five such groups running along 44th Street, with the tower rising only above the westernmost. These mid-rises are only 7 floors tall, with no set-back upper floors. The north-south oriented 14-story wing that forms the eastern end of the courtyard is set back slightly from the 7-story section, and clad in red brick. It has three bays of double-windows on its southern face, and 12 along the east facade.

The Inkwell, the older Beaux-Arts component at 520 West 45th, is clad in red brick above a beige-painted limestone ground floor. There are three wide middle bays, and narrower end bays. At the ground floor the middle bays all have pairs of many-paned windows flanking the main openings, which are topped by peaked pediments on large console brackets, with escutcheons within the pediments. The center bay has wood-and-glass double-doors below a 3-piece wood-and-glass transom, and the other two have grey metal-and-glass panels resembling doors, below transoms. The end bays have large single-windows.

The upper floors have large, 4-over-6 windows in the end bays, with splayed brick lintels (and keystones on the 3rd floor). The middle bays have tripartite windows (with smaller individual sills) with black iron mullions. There are trios of incised brick panels in the spandrels between floors at the three middle bays. At the 4th floor the middle bays are segmental-arched, and the entire floor is capped by a broad, cream-colored, bracketed stone cornice above a ribbed frieze with large, acanthus-leaf console brackets framing each bay. The 5th floor has stone surrounds at the triple-windows, and stone mullions. The facade is crowned by a dentiled stone band, a brick roof parapet, and a stone coping.

The two easternmost 14-story buildings are somewhat set back from the building line, and clad in the same manner as the other mid-rises. The main facades have nine bays of double-windows, separated into four western and five eastern bays by a vertical band of silver and dark-grey metal above the ground floor. Alternating bays have black metal air-conditioning vents below them or shorter dark-grey brick spandrel panels. At the ground floor the western three bays have metal louvers, and the 4th has a metal service door. The next three bays have double-windows, and the next has the main entrance, with a glass-and-metal door. The eastern bays have double-windows, with a metal canopy over all three eastern bays. At the far east end is an extra, recessed bay with metal spandrels. These facades set back above the 9th floor. The top floors are clad in orange brick, divided into three section by vertical bands of dark-grey metal. The middle section has four bays of double-windows, and the outer sections both have two bays of wider double-windows.
There are some retail spaces at the west end, occupied by NYC Velo Hell's Kitchen bicycle shop, Gotham West Market, and dell'Anima restaurant.

www.gothamwestnyc.com