Madison Square Park Tower, 45 East 22nd Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 45 East 22nd Street by Carter Horsley

This very dramatic, glass, mid-block tower at 45 East 22^nd Street has been designed by Kohn Peterson Fox and Goldstein, Hill & West for The Continuum Company, which is headed by Ian Bruce Eichner, the developer of CitySpire on 56^th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

This tower has 82 residential condominiums and was completed in 2016.

It has a 75-foot frontage on 22^nd Street but flares as it soars to 125-feet wide at its 777-foot-high top as a result of it having acquired air rights from neighboring lots.

As a result, it is substantially higher than the thin residential tower at One Madison at 23 East 22^nd Street that Mr. Eichner attempted to acquire before launching this project. It is also taller than the famous MetLife “Clocktower” office building that has long dominated Madison Square Park and is being converted into a hotel by Ian Schrager.

While none of these towers will ever be as famous as the much shorter “Flatiron” building that occupies the triangular block between 22^nd and 23^rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue, they're giving the “Flatiron” district and Midtown South a dramatic new, reverberating skyline cluster.

It has been designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, whose most recent residential project in the city was the sinuous One Jackson Square in the West Village. 

Its other major projects include the great, curved, 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, the Unilever London Headquarters, the Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen, China, the China Zun Tower in Beijing, China, and the master plan for the Hudson Yards for the Related Companies.

Martin Brudnizki is the interior designer.

Bottom Line

This very tall, mid-block tower will make the southeast corner of Madison Square Park resonate a lot as it is a bit to the east of, and 150 feet taller than, the One Madison residential tower and a block south of the famous Clocktower building that was the world’s tallest when erected on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 24^th Street. It will also resonate inside as all interior corners will be rounded.

Description

This 8-sided glass tower cantilevers about 17 feet over a neighboring building and it flares outward as it rises above its rusticated granite base.

The top of the tower is peaked and slants downward toward the east.

The base has a bronze entrance marquee beneath three-story-high, tall multi-paned windows, and sidewalk landscaping.  The slightly setback east section of the base has two, tall and thin multi-paned windows over the garage entrance.

In an October 10, 2014 article in The New York Times, Paul Katz, a principal of Kohn Pedersen Fox, described the tower as “a flaring, Brancusi-esque sculptural form

Amenities

The building has a concierge, a garage and a 50^th floor club lounge.

The fourth floor will have a fitness center, the fifth floor will have a terrace, the second floor will have a half-court basketball facility and the building will also have a children’s playroom, a golf simulator, a yoga studio, a residents’ lounge, a billiards room and a card room.

Apartments

There are only two units per floor, apart from 8 full-floor apartments and a couple of duplexes.

Residents can choose from three finishes – Claryville, St. James and Waldorf - for their floors and kitchen cabinetry. 

One of the building’s most unusual interior features are the apartment front doors, which are four inches thick with a very handsome, closely fluted treatment.

The very long kitchens are partially enclosed and have a lovely Mercury Black marble countertop beneath a glass, ceiling-hung “gantry” over the “island” end of a large wall divider.

Kitchens have Molteni cabinetry with marble countertops and backsplashes and Sub-Zero and Miele appliances.

Master baths have very attractive horizontally-grained marble floors and bath and shower enclosures.

Mr. Brudnizki maintains that “the softness is in the details.”

Full-floor Residence A on the 55^th floor has 4,651 square feet and four bedrooms and a 39 foot-long, corner living/dining room, an enclosed and windowed, 20-foot-long kitchen, and an 11-foot-long laundry.

Residence A on the 42^nd Street is a three-bedroom unit with 2,433 square feet and a 30-foot-long, corner living/dining room with a partially enclosed, pass-through kitchen.

Residence B is a 2,144-square-foot duplex on the 40^th and 41^st floors with a double-height, 20-foot-wide, corner living/dining room next to an 11-foot-long, pass-through kitchen and a bedroom on the lower level and 18-foot-long master bedroom and an 11-foot-long office on the upper floor.

Residence A on the 28^th floor is a two-bedroom unit with 1, 955 square feet and a 27-foot-long, corner living/dining room with a pass-through kitchen.

Residence A on the 15^th floor is a two-bedroom unit with a 19-foot-long living/dining room with a pass-through kitchen.

Residence B on the 16^th floor is a one-bedroom unit with 1,074 square feet and a 14-foot-long living/dining room with an open kitchen with an island.

History

Mr. Eichner, the developer, initially tried unsuccessfully to buy One Madison on the same block in 2010 when that building had financial problems.

In an October 10, 2014 article in The New York Times, Mr. Eichner said that he did not see “ever getting to anything like this again in my lifetime.”  His other projects have included CitySpire and One Broadway Place.

In a March 25, 2015 article by Jessica Dailey at ny.curbed.com, Mr. Eichner said that when he held a design completion for the project, Kohn Pederson Fox gave him 21 different designs for the building, adding that “it showed me that they spent a very significant amount of time and money on this.”  He said he “pretty much immediately picked the design…,” adding that he “had not seen anything like it before.”

KPF had proposed an all-glass base for its glass tower, but Mr. Eichner said he wanted something more contextual.

The article noted that the developer noted that most new developments are “dominated by a contemporary influence” and he encouraged the interior designer to use a lot of “soft curves inside the apartments – corners of walls, counter edges, moldings, and cabinet hardware are all rounded.”