| View 34 | |
|---|---|
 Looking west at the building in 2011 | |
 Interactive map of View 34 | |
| Former names | Rivergate |
| General information | |
| Status | Completed |
| Location | 401East 34th Street,New York City, United States |
| Coordinates | 40°44′38″N73°58′21″W / 40.74389°N 73.97250°W /40.74389; -73.97250 |
| Groundbreaking | March 7, 1983 |
| Opened | 1985 |
| Cost | US$30,000,000 |
| Owner | UDR, Inc. |
| Height | 362 ft (110 m)[1] |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 35 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | Samuel Braverman,Costas Kondylis |
| Architecture firm | Philip Birnbaum & Associates |
| Developer | Donald Zucker |
| Structural engineer | Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers P.C.[1] |
| Other information | |
| Number of units | 740 |
View 34 (formerly known asRivergate) is a 35-story apartment building in theMurray Hill neighborhood ofManhattan inNew York City. Occupying the full block bounded byFirst Avenue,FDR Drive,East 34th Street and East 35th Street, thehigh-rise was constructed on the former site of aCoca-Cola bottling plant and sparked the redevelopment of the eastern part of Murray Hill from industrial to residential uses beginning in the 1980s.
In 1978, developer Donald Zucker entered into an agreement with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of New York, Inc. to purchase its bottling plant located at 425 East 34th Street for $6 million and redevelop the site with a high-rise containing 800 residential units. He retained architectPaul Rudolph to design a residential and commercial rental property on the site. Although the building would require a change in zoning from manufacturing to residential use, Zucker had hoped to begin construction on the project in the spring of 1980.[2][3][4] However, the sale of the bottling plant would not occur until July 1980 because of delays associated with Coca-Cola getting a cleartitle to the property; acovenant in the land deeded from the city in 1847 required the title holder to maintain the streets around the property. On February 21, 1980, theNew York City Board of Estimate voted to grant a waiver to Coca-Cola from the provision with a payment of $175,000 for back street repairs under the condition that the company relocate to a formerCanada Dry plant inMaspeth, Queens, keeping the jobs in the city.[5][6][7][8]
Zucker originally planned to construct a 42-story residential tower on the block, and allocated part of the site for a playground to appease the local community and to obtain a zoning bonus allowing for additional floor area fromprivately owned public space.[8] An environmental impact statement for the proposed project was completed in May 1981.[9] The project was initially opposed byManhattan Community Board 6 and theNew York City Planning Commission, which questioned if the building's proposed density would fit in adjacent to an interchange on the FDR Drive and theKips Bay Generating Station, but negotiations led to the developer agreeing to reduce the size of the project by 20 percent and modify the design of the structure facing theEast River. A park was also included on the First Avenue side of the building to upgrade public space in Community District 6, which had the fewest parks compared to other community districts in the borough.[10]
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 7, 1983, and attended by several city officials including MayorEd Koch, ComptrollerHarrison J. Goldin and Borough PresidentAndrew Stein. Originally named Rivergate, the $30 million project was designed by Samuel Braverman andCostas Kondylis of Philip Birnbaum & Associates and planned to include 700 rental units consisting of one- and two-bedroom apartments.[10][11][12] The building was completed at the beginning of 1985. By March of that year, one hundred tenants had moved in and another hundred had signed leases.[13]
The original design for the 23,700-square-foot (2,200 m2) public plaza on the west side of the site was made byThomas Balsley Associates.[9][14][15] A unique feature of the plaza was a 102-by-52-foot (31 m × 16 m)ice skating rink. Rivergate Ice Rink opened in December 1985 and was the first outdoor rink to be constructed in Manhattan since 1966 whenLasker Rink opened inCentral Park.[16] While the small size of Rivergate Ice Rink drew comparisons to theRockefeller Center ice rink, it wasn't crowded with tourists like the one at Rockefeller Center orWollman Rink in Central Park. The plaza's outdoor ice rink was popular among local residents and families; it included a warming hut for skaters that served hot chocolate.[16][17] The northern side of the plaza included a basketball court and a children's playground.[15] The ice rink was subsequently removed in 1996 in a redesign of the plaza by Landgarden Landscape Architects and converted into a passive recreation area with a lawn surrounded by a brick track with trees and shrubs around the perimeter.[14][15]
In July 2011, Rivergate was sold by the Zucker Organization toUDR, Inc. for $443 million.[18] The new owner began renovating the apartment complex the following year and subsequently changed the name of the building to View 34.[19][20] As part of the building renovations, the total number of residential units was increased from 706 to 740 by internal subdivisions of one-bedroom apartments into studio apartments.[9]
In 2014, the building owner filed an application to construct a 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) retail building at the northwest corner of the public plaza. As originally constructed, the size of the plaza had exceeded its required area, which allowed some of the public space to be converted to private use. The proposed plans also involved modifications to other parts of the plaza, including the addition of a dog run, a turf area on a platform and additional seating areas. Discussions with the City Planning Commission and Community Board 6 led the developer to decrease the footprint of the new retail area to reduce the loss of public open space.[21][22][23] The new retail building and public plaza were designed by MuCh Architecture in collaboration with SiteWorks and include a 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) restaurant, outdoor seating areas with an elevated turf lawn, a children's playground, a basketball court and a 5-by-3-by-6-foot (155 cm × 100 cm × 180 cm) mirror polished stainless steel sculpture byDavid Fried titledStemmer.[24][25]
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The building forms a U-shape with a narrow courtyard facing the East River and has a step design with three deepsetbacks on the east side of the structure that form roof terraces for some of the apartments facing the river.[10][11][26] It has a 6,000-square-foot (560 m2), three-story glass atrium lobby designed by architect David Kenneth Specter that includes an indoor garden, waterfalls and a 32-by-8-foot (9.8 m × 2.4 m) painting byFrank Stella titledDamascus Gate Variation I.[11][14][27] Other building amenities include a health club and roof deck. The windows of apartments in the building containinsulated glazing to reduce interior noise given the building's location adjacent to the FDR Drive and near theEast 34th Street Heliport.[26][28]
Robert A. M. Stern and the co-authors of his 2006 bookNew York 2000 described Rivergate as a "banal multibalconied, brown brick-clad mass," although they also wrote that that the public plaza was "a happy contribution to the developing neighborhood."[14]
The Rivergate project sparked the redevelopment of the eastern part of Murray Hill from industrial to residential uses; after the site's zoning was changed from manufacturing to residential, the City Planning Commission rezoned other sites in the area to allow for high-density residential development.[10][26][29][30] The rezoning of other sites along First Avenue to the north of Rivergate led to the development of additional residential high-rises in the 1980s includingManhattan Place, the Horizon, andThe Corinthian.[31] In 2008, the city approved the rezoning of four formerConsolidated Edison properties along First Avenue, including the former sites of theWaterside Generating Station andKips Bay Generating Station, the latter of which was located across from Rivergate on the east side of First Avenue between East 35th and 36th streets.[32] The block that formerly contained the Kips Bay Generating Station was redeveloped with an elementary school that opened in 2013 (P.S. 281 – The River School) and a pair of residential skyscrapers,American Copper Buildings, that were completed in 2017 and 2018.[33][34]
Media related toView 34 at Wikimedia Commons