Ratner-Gehry Beekman Tower

New York magazine reporter Kurt Andersen wrote in the Nov. 28, 2005 issue: "[Gehry's] 74-story apartment tower (plus hospital and school) [would be] just south of the Brooklyn Bridge. Given the string of abortive New York projects he’s been through (like the doomed ground-zero theater center), he doesn’t want to publish his design for Beekman Tower 'until they’re sure they’re going to build.' But he showed me the renderings. For a Gehry building, it’s conservative, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—a classic Manhattan skyscraper with several setbacks. But for a Manhattan high-rise it’s radical, since it will likely be clad in titanium—creased and wrinkled as if it’s a few yards of draped fabric rather than a dozen acres of metal."

A statement posted on the community notification forum of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's Web site reads: "The mixed-use building on Beekman Street will fill aproximately one million square feet and is expected to cost $570 million to build. In addition to the new [Pace University?] school [facilities]-- which will have its own entrance -- the building will house two levels of below-grade parking, ground floor retail space, an ambulatory care facility for the [adjacent] NYU hospital, market-rate rental apartments and residential condominium units, and 13,000 square feet of open public space in a plaza to the west of the building. "

For someone who ranks among the world's three most famous practicing architects (and in many opinions, is the most acclaimed of them all), Gehry's past visions and realized proposals for high-rise buildings have been far less dramatic than the low-rise cultural structures that made him so renowned.

UPDATE 5.23.06:

New York Post real estate writer Lois Weiss wrote the following today: "Along with lobbies for each use, the first four floors host a school cafeteria, classrooms, a gymnasium and a library. Medical offices for the hospital next door take up the fifth floor. The sixth is reserved for mechanicals such as the elevators. But above it is a pool on a building setback on the seventh floor, along with two community rooms for 150 people each. The midsection includes what will likely be smaller luxury rental apartments - between 17 to19 units per floor. Starting at the 37th floor, the sprawling condos take over with eight per floor. At the 44th floor, the count changes to four apartments, plus a gym and community room - which does not really mean open to anyone but the condo community. There are five units per floor from the 49th through 70th floors, three on 71 and then two plus the bottom of that triplex on 72 [which extends up to 74]."