Turtle Bay Towers

Turtle Bay Towers was initially built in 1929 to function as an NYC Design School and was briefly a print factory. The 26-story building experienced a gas explosion, which thankfully didn’t affect the integrity of the building. As a method to promote the repurposing of the building, the New York City legislation gave tax abatements to developers that were interested in adaptively reusing the building for residences. In the end, the developer with the architect managed to churn 341 housing units from the building and opened it in 1977 as a luxury apartment located strategically in Midtown East New York, near the United Nations Office.

The intervention discarded the damaged shaft from the explosion to expose the apartment building to natural ventilation and lighting. Though the floor area was reduced, the officials permitted the covering of the setbacks in glass canopies (called greenhouse windows) for the apartments. The architects also managed to portion the nonuniform floor plan into various apartment types, resulting in an interesting response of the space to accommodate residential use. The adaptive reuse of the building was awarded the First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.

Address : 310 E 46th Street, New York

Architect : RKTB Architects

Developer/Owner : Rockrose Cons. Corporation

Built Year : 1929

Repurposed Year : 1977

Building Use Before: Design School, then Print Factory

Building Use Now : Housing

No of Storeys : 26