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Mercedes House Apartments (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / Eleventh Avenue, 770
 interesting place, apartment building, Modern (architecture)

348-foot, 32-story futurist residential building completed in 2012 for Two Trees Management Co. Designed by TEN Arquitectos, it consists of a 3-story podium base, with a mid-rise on the west end and a high-rise tower on the east end, connected above the podium by a Z-shaped section that stairsteps down from east to west with extensive terraces. On either side of this angled section, the podium top has landscaped outdoor spaces.

The building is named for the titanic 330,000-square-foot, double-height Mercedes-Benz showroom that fronts 11th Avenue. This is a two-tiered project, whose first and smaller section consists of a stepped progression of stories, 16 in all, along 11th Avenue and 53rd Street. Containing 222 rentals, it was completed and opened for business in April 2011. The second, and far larger, portion of Mercedes House is 32 stories and is connected to the first through an even bolder step-like progression that rises up as it snakes back toward Tenth Avenue. This part of the project opened on May 1, 2012, and contains 162 condos and 474 rentals, which are housed on the 22nd through 32nd floors.

The building is primarily clad in two tones of grey metal and green-tinted glass. The ground floor is largely clad in stainless-steel, with the main entrance on 54th Street, near the east end. It has a glass revolving door and glass double-doors set in a recessed glass wall. To the left another glass wall angled forward to the building line, with additional glass doors, and to the right is the non-recessed entrance to The Mercedes Club fitness center, with glass double-doors. A suspended glass-and-metal canopy covers all these entrances. Farther to the east is a set of metal service doors and a storefront. To the west of the entrances are two steel service doors and two long bays of plate-glass windows with colorful geometric designs (one of the bays also including a glass door); a section of metal louvers and another service door, and finally a wide garage door connecting to where the auto showroom begins. There is a large bay of recessed plate-glass above the garage door at the 2nd floor, and to the east the metal cladding is pierced by a random pattern of narrow paired and single-windows. The few openings at the east end have metal louvers instead of windows, as do most of the openings at the 3rd floor. At the extreme eastern end there is a 4-story section of silver metal paneling that transitions to a translucent screen near the top.

Back at the showroom area at the west end, there are 12 bays with double-height plate-glass show-windows between projecting columns (each darker grey at the front, and almost white at the rear, behind the glass). The metal louvers continue across the openings in the 3rd floor. While most of the base west of the main tower sets back above the 3rd floor to a landscaped deck, the eastern two bays rise up to the 7th floor, with a staggered pattern of narrow double- and single-windows.

The west facade along the avenue has eight large bays with double-height show-windows, here separated by slender blue metal columns. The main entrance to the showroom is in the 3rd bay from the north, framed by blue metal. Above, the random window patterns continue from the north facade. The north end rises to 7th floor, and then makes three stair steps upward to the south, where it reaches the 10th floor. The stair-steps continue along the west end of the south facade on 53rd Street up to the 13th floor. At the ground floor the showroom bays extend for seven bays (with metal louvers at the 2nd level). Most of the rest of the ground floor to the east is clad in stainless-steel, with a set of service doors next to the showroom, followed by another recessed residential entrance that matches the one of the north side (the angled wall here encloses a small storefront); a shorter metal-and-glass canopy covers this entrance. Above the right side of this entrance is where the rising mid-rise upper floors begin their diagonal march across the podium, crossing to the northeast and stair-stepping one floor at a time. To the east of the entrance the ground floor has three service doors, and then a row of three garage doors (two of them wider). Most of the rest of the ground floor has a mix of windows, secondary doors, service doors, and garage doors. At the far east end, there is a 6-story section matching that at the north, with metal panels and a metal screen at the top.

The tower at the east end spans two bays with the same two-toned dappled cladding and staggered window on the north, east, and south sides. The west side of the tower is clad in a green glass curtain wall with thin metal spandrels and mullion. Both sides of the thin, diagonal connecting section feature similar cladding, but with rows of thin metal brise de soleils running across each floor on the south side.

In total, the complex contains 696 rental apartments and 162 condominium units. Besides the Mercedes dealership, lobbies, and amenity spaces, the ground floor is occupied by The Market at Mercedes House restaurant, and Polaris Organic Cleaners.

www.mercedeshouseny.com/
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°46'3"N   73°59'31"W
This article was last modified 9 months ago