One Madison, 23 East 22nd Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 23 East 22nd Street by Carter Horsley

One Madison at 22 East 23^rd Street is a dramatic and very slender residential skyscraper on the south side of Madison Square Park that was developed by Slazer Enterprises of New City, New York, of which Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs were principals.

In April 2012, a group of investors including Related Cos., CIM Group and HFZ Capital acquired the project, which then had about 55 unsold units.

The 60-floor tower originally was planned to have 69 apartments and was designed by Cetra/Ruddy.

At one point, Rem Koolhaas and the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, designed an even more dramatic, but shorter “sister” building on the 22^nd Street site of the through-block site.  That building would have been cantilevered substantially to the east to “peek-a-boo” about the taller tower and its cantilevered floors would have had windows facing downward as well as its normal vertical windows.  The Koolhaas building, however, never got off the ground.

Bottom Line

This highly visible “sliver” apartment tower with spectacular views was nearly completed on the south side of Madison Square Park when it got caught in the whirlwind of the financial crisis that eliminated a lower but very dramatic cantilevered “sister” tower on its south side. In 2012, control of the One Madison project was taken over by Related Cos. and a group of investors.

Description

Its form is somewhat similar to the proposed residential skyscraper at 80 South Street that was designed by Santiago Calatrava for Frank Sciame in 2004. That tower featured 10 four-story townhouses that were vertically stacked and separated by roof terraces.

About the time that that project was announced, Mr. Calatrava, one of the world's most famous designers and engineers, was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The 80 South Street project sparked great enthusiasm for the future of Lower Manhattan despite widespread concerns and controversies at the time over the designs for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site at Ground Zero.

The design of this residential tower has fewer "box" protrusions facing north and east and the protrusions are considerably less dramatic than Calatrava's. Furthermore, the "protrusions," which vary in height, do not represent multi-story residences as those at 80 South Street did. This tower has seven "pop-out" elements of four to six stories each on its north and east façades.

Although some observers were a bit concerned that this tower was impinging upon the "space" of the majestic Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tower at 1 Madison Avenue on the southeast corner of the avenue and 24th Street, other observers were impressed by its sleek façades and vertiginous verticality.

The project's celebrity ratcheted up many more notches, furthermore, when the developer unveiled its plans for the 22nd Street portion of the through-block project.

Amenities

The building has a doorman and a concierge.

It also has a private dining room with a gourmet catering kitchen, a lounge, a parlor with a billiards table, a lap pool, a spa with a glass-enclosed steam room overlooking Madison Square Park, a fitness center with yoga room and a children's playroom.

Apartments

Apartments have spectacular views and high ceilings.

Rupert Murdoch, the publisher of The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, brought the tower's top four floors for $57.5 million n 2014 but an April 17, 2015 article by Jessica Dailey noted that he put the top three floors, comprising 6,850 square feet, on the market for $72 million.  He had bought the space "raw" and hired Jose Ramirez to design and built it.  The article said that Mr. Murdoch lived in a three-bedroom unit on the 57th floor that he will keep but has also bought a townhouse at 278 West 11th Street for $25 million.

Apartment 10A has a 25-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen and two bedrooms.

Apartment 16A is a three-bedroom unit with a 27-foot-long entry hall that leads into a 27-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen with an island.  It also has a corner terrace with two entrances and two long legs.

Apartment 22B is a three-bedroom unit with a long gallery that leads to a 24-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen.

Apartment 40 is a four-bedroom unit with a 27-foot-long entry hall that leads to a 33-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen with an island.