Manhattan Synagogue to Build Condos on Campus

The Congregation Shearith Israel is planning to build condominiums adjacent to its landmark synagogue. Also, New York's Municipal Arts Society recognizes local architects and landscape designers.

Congregation to Develop Mixed-Use Building

Manhattan's Congregation Shearith Israel, the nation's oldest Jewish congregation, has passed another hurdle in its plans to develop a nine-story mixed-use building that will include condominiums and replace an existing community house.

The project will also link to the congregation's 1897 synagogue at 70th St. and Central Park West, an historic landmark featuring a Tiffany-designed interior, while also enlarging the synagogue's main entrance.

The design of the new building by New York's Platt Byard Dovell White Architects gained unanimous approval from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in March, following input from the community and several revisions to its height and features. The new building's exterior will have buff-colored brick, glass, metal, and limestone to match the synagogue.

The new structure at 10 W. 70th St. will reserve its first four floors and below-grade space for the synagogue's classrooms, offices, meeting rooms, and archival space, while also housing a prayer chapel known as the Little Synagogue. The top four floors will be full-floor condominiums topped by a setback penthouse, all of which the synagogue plans to sell to pay for construction of the new building and ongoing restoration efforts on the historic synagogue.

The new building will measure 41,875 sq. ft. above ground and an additional 12,784 sq. ft. below grade. The final designs must also gain approval from the city's Board of Standards and Appeals, according to a spokeswoman for the congregation. The congregation refused to provide its project schedule or budget.

Shearith Israel was the only Jewish congregation in New York City from 1654 to 1825.

Arts Society Taps Design Winners

New York's Municipal Arts Society has commended five local projects designed by New York-based architects and built in 2005 for excellence in urban design. The society held an awards ceremony this spring at 7 World Trade Center. The projects recognized are:

• 7 World Trade Center at 250 Greenwich St. in Manhattan, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, won the award for best new building
• the elevated plaza at 55 Water St. in Manhattan, by Rogers Marvel Architects and Ken Smith Landscape Architects, was recognized as the best privately owned public space
• the Historic Front Street residential redevelopment and South Street Seaport restoration in Manhattan, designed by Cook + Fox Architects, won the best residential restoration award
• The Gun Hill Road subway station in the Bronx, by di Domenico + Partners, won the neighborhood catalyst award
• the historic restoration of Top of the Rock at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, by Gabellini Sheppard Associates, won the outstanding commercial restoration award.

Design Contest for Roosevelt Island

A mock international competition for redesigns of the southern tip of Roosevelt Island attracted bold concepts to redevelop an historic site on the East River isle in New York City. A Parisian woman studying in Vienna took the first prize, while New York-based teams won third prize and the historic preservation award.

The contest, sponsored by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Center for Architecture, does not necessarily result in actual development projects, but rather is intended to generate ideas for creative use of public land. The current biennial follows the inaugural contest in 2004.

Organized by the Emerging New York Architects Committee, a joint AIA-Center for Architecture panel, the contest invited participants to design a multiuse facility on the former site of the Smallpox Hospital, an area popular today for public gatherings to watch Fourth of July fireworks shows on the East River, as well as for the classic ruins of the hospital's facilities. The final concept had to address design needs identified by the Roosevelt Island Visual Arts Association, Coler-Goldwater Hospital Therapeutic Recreation Services, and the local disabled residents.

Nina Baniahmad, a French student at the Vienna University of Technology in Vienna, won the competition with a hybrid design that combines outdoor and indoor galleries, public spaces, gardens, esplanades, and administrative offices, all while providing wheelchair access and preserving the hospital's ruins as a landmark.

Among the New York winners, Dominic Leong and Brian Price took third prize, while the historic preservation award went to Eric Brodfuehrer.

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