Waterside Apartments

Identification

Facts

• Based on developer Ravitch's initial proposal in 1961, the painful conception was begun with greenlighting and starting of design work in 1963.
• Construction began in 1971 and the complex was finally dedicated in September 1973, and completed the next year, 11 years after the design work had started.
• The four apartment towers include 1,470 housing units, some completed as subsidised for medium- and lower income residents.
• The towers are clad in large red brickwork with streaks of black in spandrels, with the chamfered and nichéd corners changing to bold cantilevered protrusions in upper floors to house the larger apartments.
• As an independent entity on the complex, the U.N. International School (Harrison, Abramovitz & Harris, 1973) occupies the south-eastern tip of the platform.
• The only direct connection to Manhattan (if one doesn't count the connection to the motorway from the garage) is by a pedestrian bridge leading over the FDR motorway at 25th Street, effectively isolating the complex from the rest of the city.
• The Waterside Apartment Towers were built in 1963-1974 on a platform on East River off the Bellevue Hospital complex.