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MANHATTAN WEST NEW YORK CITY
A clear vision M
anhattan’s West Side Yard, a rail yard located on the ‘Far West Side’ of the island, had been the subject of various speculative development discussions since the 1950s. A portion of the site was bought by development company Brookfield Properties in the 1980s, who gradually acquired the rest of the site over subsequent years, covering an area between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and West 31st and West 33rd Streets. Despite the site’s clear potential, it wasn’t until 2005 when New York’s City Council approved a ‘rezoning’ – changing the ‘use’ of the land and thereby what restrictions it falls under –– that developing on it became a real possibility. A plan was therefore submitted by Brookfield for a mixed use scheme which would work within the site’s designated ‘air rights,’ creating a ‘neighbourhood’ here, on what was “one of the most underdeveloped sites remaining in Manhattan.”
The developer had a good relationship with the masterplan’s architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) from previous projects, and the practice has “a very long history and expertise in designing tall buildings and planning new neighbourhoods,” explains SOM principal Julia Murphy. She adds: “The project was a perfect fit for us”, detailing how it’s enabled them to rethink several consecutive blocks of the city. It encompasses a handful of new buildings around a plaza that will connect to the landscaped route known as the High Line via a new elevated pedestrian link in 2023.
The practice knew from the outset that the project wasn’t going to be straightforward. “It was always going to be very complex, given its scale, the lack
ADF MARCH 2022
The versatility of glass made it the right choice for SOM to create curved facades with maximum transparency, in a complex mixed-use development on one of Manhattan’s last undeveloped sites. Roseanne Field reports
© Jakob Dahlin
of buildable land, and the active railroad tracks underneath,” Murphy explains. “The vision was to create a vibrant new place offering everything from workspaces to hospitality and residences, with vast public space and retail on the ground to bring people into the site.”
By 2008 the practice had completed an early iteration of the masterplan, but the majority of the development stopped when the financial crisis hit. Construction of the pedestrian platform over the railroad tracks
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