53W53

53 West 53 (also known as 53W53 and formerly known as Tower Verre) is a supertall skyscraper at 53 West 53rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It was developed by the real estate companies Pontiac Land Group and Hines. With a height of 1,050 ft (320 m), 53 West 53 is the twelfth-tallest completed building in the city as of January 2025. 53 West 53 was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and contains 77 stories; the highest story is numbered 87 and some floor numbers are skipped. The facade is set within a concrete diagrid that provides structural support for the building. The northern and southern facades slope inward to a set of five spires at different heights. The building is mixed-use, with MoMA gallery space and a private restaurant at the base. The residential portion of the tower contains 145 condominiums with interiors designed by Thierry Despont. There are also amenities spaces on floors 12 through 16 and a lounge on floors 46 and 47. Plans for Tower Verre, a 1,250 ft-tall (380 m) skyscraper at 53 West 53rd Street, were announced in 2007 in conjunction with an expansion of MoMA. The original design was shortened by 200 ft (61 m) in 2009 after protests over the original height. Construction was still delayed until 2013 due to difficulties in securing financing. Work began in late 2014 and sales started the next year. It was officially topped out in mid-2018, and construction was officially completed in early 2020, though a majority of the units remained unsold at the building's completion.

53 West 53 is at 53 West 53rd Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is along the northern side of 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. The land lot covers 17,713 ft2 (1,645.6 m2) or 18,560 ft2 (1,724 m2). The site has a frontage of 87.33 ft (26.62 m) on 53rd Street to the south and 97.5 ft (29.7 m) on 54th Street to the north, with a depth of 200 ft (61 m) between these two streets. Nearby buildings include the CBS Building to the south, Credit Lyonnais Building to the southwest, New York Hilton Midtown to the west, 1345 Avenue of the Americas to the northwest, the Warwick New York Hotel to the north, 46 West 55th Street to the northeast, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the east. 53 West 53 is one of several major developments in the northern section of Midtown Manhattan that are collectively dubbed Billionaires' Row by the media. Other buildings along Billionaires' Row include 432 Park Avenue, 111 West 57th Street, One57, and Central Park Tower on 57th Street, as well as 220 Central Park South on Central Park South (59th Street).

Officially named 53 West 53, the building was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel as a 77-story, 145-unit tower. The building has 77 physical stories. The top story is numbered 87 and several floor numbers are skipped. There are also two basement levels; the cellar immediately below ground is used as storage by MoMA, while the subcellar beneath it contains mechanical rooms for the upper stories. The highest occupied story is 890 ft (270 m) above ground. The tower technically measures 1,049 ft 8 in (319.94 m) tall from the lobby floor to the tip of its tallest spire. This makes it the tenth-tallest completed building in the city as of November 2019. The site is split between three different zoning districts, each of which had different setback requirements. During planning, Nouvel's team designed a sloping structure to follow the setback requirements and various parcel restrictions on the site. The ultimate design for the building has five spires.

Building data from Wikidata (CC0); heights normalised. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).