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East 29th Street Tower- 50 Stories

6K views 18 replies 13 participants last post by  tmac14wr 
#1 ·
I already posted this in the "Bold Huge Wesiside Plan" thread but I'll make a separate thread for this one as well. :)

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50 Storey Tower at East 29th Street:

Originally posted by billyblancoNYC at Wired New York:

A Curbed exclusive by way of a special correspondent: the much loved and landmarked Little Church Around the Corner (aka the Church of Transfiguration) on East 29th Street (above, looking east) just off Fifth Avenue has apparently struck a deal with the devil... er, with developers. The church's auxiliary structure, a modern addition to the east, will be demolished and combined with other properties to the north on 30th Street to create a thru-block parcel for a 50-story residential tower. Writes our correspondent,

How do we know this? We live on the block and for several weeks have noticed surveyors taking measurements. Then we noticed architect-types with interesting eyewear loitering on the block, snapping digital photos. When approached they were all hush hush, refusing to answer questions and walking back into the church. Then last week we saw two church workers on the block and asked them what was up. One remained silent but the other was good enough to give us the gory details. Demolition will begin in about a year. The church will take the first two or three floors of the tower for their programs. We lose our morning sunlight. And Manhattan loses a little piece of its soul.
What happens now? Expect the preservationists to come out in force against the demolition. The Little Church, for its part, was made famous in 1870 with the exclamation, "God Bless the Little Church Around the Corner!" The chants may well be different this time.

www.curbed.com
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Here's an article and renderings...

NY Times

To Save Itself, a Church Sells the Air, and So Goes a Little Bit of Sun


A church annex on East 29th Street may make way for a tower.

January 16, 2005

Most days, the last direct sunlight to fall on the Church of the Transfiguration on East 29th Street, just east of Fifth Avenue, comes around noon. The 155-year-old Episcopal house of worship, commonly known as the Little Church Around the Corner, is a humble edifice, ringed largely by taller buildings that blot out much of its sky.

In the coming year, the property may sit under even more shade. Church officials have a contract with a development firm, the Clarett Group, to sell their air rights, along with a two-story auxiliary building just to the east. The building will be demolished, and the property combined with another lot to make way for a new residential tower.

Though the final height of the structure has not been determined, it will be nearly as tall as the 50-story apartment tower that opened across 29th Street from the church in 1999, said Ruthann Richert, a member of the vestry, the church's governing board.

The sale, which was first reported by the real estate Web log Curbed.com, has led to grumbling among some nearby residents, who say the building will further impede views in a part of the city where tall buildings are sprouting up with regularity. There have also been complaints from some church members who said the sale price, which was not publicly disclosed, was too low.

But Ms. Richert, who also serves on the church's building and grounds committee, said officials made the best deal they could to raise money for much-needed maintenance and to ensure that the church, a popular tourist spot with some 150 active parishioners, remains open as long as possible. "A lot of things need to be taken care of," she explained, "and we're sort of just scrounging."

The church's precarious financial situation is common among churches in New York, she said. And because the church is protected by both city and federal landmark designations, all it could offer developers were air rights and the nonlandmarked auxiliary building, at 11 East 29th Street.

Clients of a center for the elderly in the building will most likely be absorbed by other Episcopal centers, Ms. Richert said. The other church offices there will move into the first four floors of the new building, alongside retail space and an auditorium.

The demolition and construction are to begin by the summer, and in a part of Manhattan where tall buildings have become the norm, there is little organized opposition.

"In the best of all possible worlds, I wouldn't like to see another monster, especially cheek by jowl with the one across the street," said Jack Taylor, a member of Community Board 5, which represents the area. "But if the zoning allows it and the developer has bought air rights from the church, what can you do about it?"
 
#4 ·
oh man! the little church around the corner's a classic! building a 50 stories high rise rite next to it would really reduce its significance in terms of looks.
 
#5 ·
Oh nooo! They have sold their soul to the devil! Guess what new fad is coming to Manhattan? A sky-scra-pah... Ooooooooo... let's all make a big deal out of it... and, worse yet, ooooo, the church's getting new building space... oh noes, we're all screwed now...
 
#8 ·
http://www.cityrealty.com/new_developments/
Little Church Around The Corner gets tower

05-JUL-05

A 54-story condominium apartment tower to be known as Sky House will rise at 11 East 29th Street using air rights from the adjacent Church of the Transfiguration, known familiarly as the Little Church Around the Corner, at 1 East 29th Street.

The new, 138-unit tower will rise across the street from the Madison Belvedere, a 50-story, 400-unit rental tower at 10 West 29th Street.

The Clarett Group is the developer of Sky House. Clarett is also erecting the 36-story Plaza 57, another condo tower, on the former site of the Sutton Theater at 207 East 57th Street.

According to Fox & Fowle, the architects for the 138-unit Sky House, “to help the building blend with its lower-scale surroundings, the building was divided into three slender masses,” each clad in a red-brown iron-spot brick. “The element facing 29th Street and overlooking the church is set back from the street and has an architectural expression of vertical piers….Like a belfry or campanile, this almost-square tower soars into the sky celebrating and defining the presence of the historic landmark. The church’s parish house is a new three-story structure at the base of the tower that projects forward to the sidewalk, thus extending the scale and refined architectural detail of the church compound toward the east.”

The new tower will have an extremely high height-to-width ratio, perhaps somewhat like that Trump World Tower on First Avenue. While it clearly towers over the charming church complex and gardens, it is considerably thinner than Madison Belvedere at 10 West 29th Street.

The church building was erected in 1849 on what were then the outskirts of the city.

In 1923, the Episcopal Actors' Guild was founded and it carries on an active program at its national headquarters in the church's Guild Hall and such theatrical greats as Basil Rathbone, Tallulah Bankhead, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Charlton Heston, and Rex Harrison served on its council.
 
#16 ·
^ agreed. the facade is decent, but rather monotonous. looks like it's from the '70s or something.
 
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