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52-601: Sven (originally known as Queens Plaza Park ) is a residential building located at 29-59 Northern Boulevard (next to Queens Plaza ) in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens , New York City. At 762 feet (232 m) tall, Sven is the third-tallest building in Queens behind Skyline Tower and The Orchard , as well as one of the tallest buildings in New York City outside of Manhattan . The building

104-760: A 14-story clock tower and office building erected in 1927 as the first skyscraper in the borough of Queens. Designed by Morrell Smith for the Manhattan Company (later Chase Bank ), it was the borough's tallest office building until the Citicorp Building was finished in 1990. In 2015, the Chase Manhattan Bank Building was designated as an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission . It

156-402: A 2001 rezoning, much of Long Island City was rezoned to allow high-rise residential development. The site of the Chase Manhattan Bank Building was originally planned to contain a 16-story hotel, but economic downturn caused the developers to enter bankruptcy. Steve Cheung then purchased the location for $ 8.3 million, intending to build a 30-story condominium tower. The new building was slated to be

208-650: A 75 feet (23 m) "crescent with a Japanese cherry tree at its center", were prevalent. At the time, it was spacious, with only a few buildings on the sides and a solitary flagpole in the center of the plaza. Immediately to the southeast of the plaza was the Sunnyside Yard , a storage yard for the Pennsylvania Railroad (now NJ Transit Rail Operations ). The addition of railroads and a bridge made Queens Plaza easily accessible from Manhattan . Queensboro Bridge Plaza or simply Bridge Plaza, as it

260-525: A Georgian building, but the appearance is only skin deep and some of the interior rooms still have Jacobean plasterwork ceilings. This new construction has happened also in other places: in Santiago de Compostela the three-metre-deep Casa do Cabido was built to match the architectural order of the square, and the main Churrigueresque façade of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral , facing

312-412: A brown concrete structure resembling a 1970's [ sic ] filmmaker's idea of an intergalactic battle station" opened along the plaza. Strip clubs appeared in the 1990s, around the time that rehabilitation of the plaza started to be considered. By the early 2000s, Long Island City was going through gentrification , and new buildings were being put up, especially around Queens Plaza. In 2001,

364-784: A cost of $ 1 million. When completed in May 1927, the Manhattan Company's building at 29-27 Queens Plaza North was dubbed "the first skyscraper in Queens". Until the 1990 completion of One Court Square , 29-27 Queens Plaza North was the tallest commercial building in Queens. However, the Realty Construction Corporation Office Building, one block north of the Manhattan Company Building, had more office floors when completed in 1928. The Manhattan Company had bank vaults in

416-469: A green space. The plaza itself was built to accommodate the connection of the Queensboro Bridge to Queens Boulevard, which opened in 1909. A street, named Jane Street, was widened by 90 feet (27 m) and was renamed Bridge Plaza North and South. Grassy medians , cut off at each intersection, divided the main and service lanes of the plaza. Sculptures made out of flowers and trees, including

468-500: A landmark that was easily visible from other boroughs, continues above the center bay. It contains clocks on all four faces, each with Roman numerals. This made the Chase Manhattan Bank Building the second building on Queens Plaza to contain a clock tower, the first being the adjacent Brewster Building in 1911. The clocks are non-winding Telechron clocks added by the Brooklyn-based Electime Company. Above

520-518: A large two-level subway hub, opened in 1916–1917, further bringing development to the area. Queens Plaza came to be characterized as a "a new downtown", supplanting the Hunters Point section of Long Island City in that regard. From the 1920s through World War II , Queens Plaza served as the location for many factories and warehouses, some of which later became office buildings, as well as a financial hub with several banks. The Manhattan Company

572-540: A northern curved wall following the retaining wall of the excavation pit for the East Side Access tunnel boring machines now concealed by Sven Park. Later the same month, the development received a $ 360 million construction loan from M&T Bank . Work on the curved facade commenced in October 2019, and two months later the project was reported to be over halfway completed. The developers also planned to restore

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624-401: A relief. The entrance portico, made of masonry, was topped by a Gothic Revival entablature with a depiction of Oceanus , a Greek god that was also used as the Manhattan Company's icon, as well as a glazed transom . A metal sign with the bank's name was located above the first floor. These were later replaced by a utilitarian double-height glass wall. Inside was an elevator lobby, where there

676-586: A residential tower. Kevin Maloney and Kamran Hakim, who respectively headed PMG and Hakim Organization, stated that they did not "have the horsepower" to finish the project; according to The New York Times , Maloney had an almost-due acquisition loan on the Chase building and could not get a construction loan for the rest of the project without equity . Durst retained the Queens Plaza Park name even after

728-823: Is a loanword from the French façade , which in turn comes from the Italian facciata , from faccia meaning 'face', ultimately from post-classical Latin facia . The earliest usage recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is 1656. It was quite common in the Georgian period for existing houses in English towns to be given a fashionable new façade. For example, in the city of Bath , The Bunch of Grapes in Westgate Street appears to be

780-409: Is officially called Sven by its developer, The Durst Organization, a name that appears to have been in use since at least late 2019. The new development consists of 958 rental apartments, 288 of which are affordable. Amenities include an outdoor pool, a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m) gym, a private library for residents, co-working space, a children's playroom and a demonstration kitchen. Adjacent to

832-487: Is typically reached within minutes of the start of a fire. Fire stops for such building joints can be qualified, too. Putting fire sprinkler systems on each floor has a profoundly positive effect on the fire safety of buildings with curtain walls. The extended use of new materials, like polymers , resulted in an increase of high-rise building façade fires over the past few years, since they are more flammable than traditional materials. Some building codes also limit

884-608: The E , ​ M , and ​ R trains, the Queens Plaza station below ground along the eastern edge, and another stop for the 7 , <7> ​​, N and ​ W trains, the Queensboro Plaza station above the west central part of the plaza on elevated tracks. The location was the center of the 18th century village of Dutch Kills ; two millstones were preserved as relics of that time, to be displayed in

936-588: The Independent Subway System 's Queens Boulevard Line , opened at the southeast corner of the plaza. In the 1970s, Queens Plaza became a place for drug dealers, pimps, and prostitutes to frequent, and was filled with trash, drugs, and broken glass. Later, "aging Chinese takeout restaurants , humid fried-chicken joints , sad-seeming doughnut shops , [and] the Queens Plaza Municipal Parking Garage ,

988-522: The Plaza del Obradoiro , is actually encasing and concealing the older Portico of Glory . In modern high-rise building, the exterior walls are often suspended from the concrete floor slabs. Examples include curtain walls and precast concrete walls. The façade can at times be required to have a fire-resistance rating , for instance, if two buildings are very close together, to lower the likelihood of fire spreading from one building to another. In general,

1040-574: The Queens Clock Tower and the Bank of the Manhattan Company Building , is located at the southern end of the plot containing Sven. It contains 11 stories of offices as well as a 3-story clock tower. The building was designed by Morrell Smith, who had also designed other Manhattan Company branches, and until 1990, it was the tallest commercial building in Queens. It was designated as an official city landmark in 2015. As part of Sven's construction,

1092-608: The "XII" mark on each face were neo-Gothic-style cast-stone reliefs. Other features on the tower include carvings of gargoyles, as well as a "castellated turret, copper windows and granite shields". Adjacent to the tower, there was formerly a rooftop sign, which faced east and advertised the Manhattan Company. Queens Plaza was built to accommodate the connection of the Queensboro Bridge to Queens Boulevard , which opened in 1909. The plaza soon experienced an increase in real estate development. The Queensboro Plaza station ,

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1144-682: The 16-floor, 183-room Hilton Garden Inn , and a 31-floor, 160-room Marriott . New office buildings are also coming into the area. Even though the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company moved two-thirds of its employees from the Brewster Building on Queens Plaza North back to Manhattan in 2006 because of the distance and lack of restaurants in Queens Plaza, airline company JetBlue and advertising and public relations firm Publicis later moved into

1196-403: The Queens Plaza area by around 2019, as it grows along with the rest of Long Island City . The New York City Traffic Control Center at 28-11 Queens Plaza North controls the city's traffic lights. The Chase Manhattan Bank Building is a New York City designated landmark , having been given such a designation in 2015. Located at 29-27 41st Avenue, with one side facing Queens Plaza North, it

1248-415: The area was rezoned, and 2,500 of about 5,000 apartments were built or planned within two blocks of the plaza. City officials decided to clean up the plaza, since the area was being gentrified. In 2005, the U.S. Congress approved a measure to demolish the municipal parking lot and turn it into a 1.5-acre (6,100 m ) park. In 2009, $ 75 million was earmarked to clean and spruce up the area and to renovate

1300-543: The basement of 29-27 Queens Plaza North, and also occupied the ground and mezzanine floors within the base. At the time of completion, the Manhattan Company Building had the most office space of any building in Queens, but it was also 85% occupied; many of the tenants had not previously done business in Queens. In a 1928 ceremony, the Queensboro Chamber of Commerce recognized the Manhattan Building as

1352-403: The best building in Queens. A rear annex, consisting of between one and two stories, was built in two sections: a 10-foot (3.0 m) portion to the north, completed in 1928, and an extension 20 feet (6.1 m) north by 15 feet (4.6 m) east, finished in either 1931 or 1933. Following the Manhattan Company's rebranding into Chase Manhattan, the original ornament was removed from the base of

1404-408: The building in mid-2024; the transaction placed the building's value at over $ 700 million. Queens Plaza (Queens) Queens Plaza is a plaza straddling the western end of Queens Boulevard in Long Island City , Queens , between 21st Street and Jackson Avenue/ Northern Boulevard (NY 25A). The Queensboro Bridge starts near the middle of the plaza. It has a New York City Subway stop for

1456-556: The clock tower building from Cheung for $ 30 million and the surrounding land for $ 46.3 million, adding to fears that the building might be torn down. In March 2015, PMG and Hakim planned for a 930-foot (280 m), 77-story tower on the block surrounding the bank building. This height was made possible by the transfer of unused air rights from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 's East Side Access tunneling project, which ran right underneath

1508-472: The façade systems that are suspended or attached to the precast concrete slabs will be made from aluminum (powder coated or anodized) or stainless steel . In recent years more lavish materials such as titanium have sometimes been used, but due to their cost and susceptibility to panel edge staining these have not been popular. Whether rated or not, fire protection is always a design consideration. The melting point of aluminum, 660 °C (1,220 °F),

1560-470: The first supertall skyscraper in New York City outside Manhattan. The building would have been residential, split between rentals and condos. It would have spanned 900,000 square feet (84,000 m) and contain 800 units. Amid rumors of development, preservationists lobbied for making the Bank of the Manhattan Company building an official landmark. In 2014, property Markets Group and Hakim Organization purchased

1612-529: The former Chase Manhattan Bank Building was converted into the residential development's retail base, with more than 50,000 square feet (4,600 m) of commercial space. The building contains a facade of buff brick and Indiana Limestone . It is arranged into a base, a shaft, and a capital , similar to the parts of a column . The base is made of limestone and originally included a banking hall. The southern facade , facing Queens Plaza, included three vertical architectural bays that each contained windows under

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1664-492: The four clocks on the Chase Manhattan Bank Building, a project that was expected to be completed in late 2020. The residential tower topped-out during June 2020. Durst hosted an official opening ceremony for the development, which had been renamed Sven, in early 2021. However, the developer did not begin leasing the 958 residential units until that November. Durst announced plans for the public park at Sven's base in March 2022; at

1716-600: The percentage of window area in exterior walls. When the exterior wall is not rated, the perimeter slab edge becomes a junction where rated slabs are abutting an unrated wall. For rated walls, one may also choose rated windows and fire doors , to maintain that wall's rating. On a film set and within most themed attractions, many of the buildings are only façade, which are far cheaper than actual buildings, and not subject to building codes (within film sets). In film sets, they are simply held up with supports from behind, and sometimes have boxes for actors to step in and out of from

1768-554: The plans were announced, The New York Times said that the building would be erected on a 60-by-100-foot (18 by 30 m) lot, while the Brooklyn Daily Eagle said the lot was 50 by 75 feet (15 by 23 m). According to the Belcher-Hyde atlas of 1928, the lot was later expanded to 50 by 110 feet (15 by 34 m), with a one-story rear annex. The building was constructed by Charles T. Wills, Inc., and finished at

1820-417: The plaza. The renovation itself cost $ 45 million. It created a new public park within the plaza, on the former site of the municipal parking lot; the park was envisioned as an "urban oasis" or neighborhood meeting place. Another new public park, named Dutch Kills Green, was built as part of the renovation; it has 500 trees, wetlands , and pavers for storm drainage . It is right next to two new hotels :

1872-496: The plaza. Other banks included the Corn Exchange Bank , First National City Bank , and Title Guarantee and Trust Company . By 1928, 86,000 cars went through the Queensboro Bridge and onto the plaza each day. Queens Plaza came to be characterized as a "a new downtown", supplanting the Hunters Point section of Long Island City in that regard. In 1933, the Queens Plaza station , an underground subway station on

1924-440: The proposed development. At the time of the proposal, the land for the development was mostly owned by the city and various government agencies. The MTA sold the land above the East Side Access tunnel to PMG and Hakim in March 2015. Unused air rights were also taken from the Chase Manhattan Bank Building, at the southern portion of the site. Without such air rights, the height of the new development would be capped at 38 stories, since

1976-474: The proposed size of the building was four times greater than what was allowed under the area's height and zoning restrictions. In May 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted to designate the original 11-story bank building and clock tower as city landmarks. In 2016, the Durst Organization purchased the site for $ 175 million from PMG with intentions to develop

2028-521: The purchase was completed. A downsized design was announced in April 2018, calling for a 710-foot-tall tower with 63 stories. The new residential tower would curve around the preexisting bank building at its base. The building's foundations were completed in December 2018. The construction of the foundations was difficult because of the need to work around the Chase Manhattan Bank Building to the south, and

2080-592: The removal of Queens Plaza's landscaped medians. From the 1920s through World War II , Queens Plaza served as the location for many factories and warehouses, some of which later became office buildings, as well as a financial hub with several banks. The Brewster Building , a factory along the plaza, made horse-drawn carriages , Rolls-Royces and other cars, and the Brewster F2A Buffalo fighter plane. The Long Island Savings Bank , Silvercup Bakery and Chase Manhattan Bank Building also were built on

2132-429: The same former factory. Real estate developer Tishman Speyer was also looking for tenants for its Queens Plaza South skyscraper, named 2 Gotham South. While only 1,000 people lived on the streets immediately surrounding the plaza as of the 2000 United States Census , the area has been undergoing substantial new development. About 4,700 new rental units in 25 new residential buildings were expected to be completed in

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2184-470: The structure and a glass facade was added by about the mid-1960s. The branch operated through 1984 and was sold four years later; the rooftop sign was taken down by 2004. It remained abandoned from the bank's closure through 2012, when the vaults and clock tower were temporarily used for site-specific art . For nine months between 2013 and 2014, the Center for Holographic Arts occupied the building. As part of

2236-457: The time, the park was supposed to open in early 2023. The next month, Finback Brewery leased some of Sven's retail space, becoming the building's first commercial tenant. By mid-2022, half of the market-rate units had been leased. but the retail space was not occupied. In early 2024, the Durst family considered selling the building for up to $ 850 million. Ultimately, Affinius Capital bought a stake in

2288-550: The tower will be the second tallest building in Queens after Skyline Tower . At Sven's base, there are shops in the Chase Manhattan Bank Building , a 14-story office building and clock tower described as "the first skyscraper in Queens". Sven's residential component was originally slated to be the tallest building in Queens, though the Skyline Tower would be taller if completed first. The project

2340-423: The tower, a 0.5-acre (2,000 m) public park sits at the base of the building. The entire facade is made of glass. The concave southern facade, facing Queens Plaza, curves inward. The interiors of the residences were designed by Selldorf Architects . The building's concave exterior design by Handel Architects has drawn comparisons to London 's 20 Fenchurch Street . Chase Manhattan Bank Building , also known as

2392-473: The two-story 5 Skillman Place, which later became the site of the Bank of the Manhattan Company Building. The company drew up blueprints for a new office and bank building at 29-27 Queens Plaza North, and submitted them to the Queens Bureau of Buildings in 1924. These plans, announced in October 1925, called for a 14-story structure, comprising 11 stories of offices and a 3-story clock tower on top. When

2444-427: Was access to the elevators that served the upper floors. There was also a bank vault in the basement. On the upper stories, the southern facade is divided into three vertical bays, with buff brick standing out against the brown-brick facade. This facade contains a 2-3-2 window arrangement, with three windows in the center bay and two windows in each of the outer bays. The clock tower, described before its construction as

2496-418: Was one of several that were planned on Queens Plaza following a 2001 rezoning. Sven was first planned as a hotel, then a condominium, and finally a 930-foot (280 m) supertall skyscraper before the plans were finalized in 2016. The structure topped out during June 2020, and developer Durst Organization began renting apartments in late 2021 The development incorporates the Chase Manhattan Bank Building ,

2548-507: Was one of the banks that moved to Queens Plaza. Formed in 1799, it was originally based at 40 Wall Street in Manhattan (later occupied by a skyscraper at the same site ). The Manhattan Company's expansion into Queens started in 1910 with its purchase of a minority interest in the Bank of Long Island , followed ten years later by the merger of the two companies. At the time of the merger, the Manhattan Company had 13 Queens locations, including

2600-507: Was one of the most prominent buildings on Queens Plaza when it was completed in 1927. Facade In architecture , the façade of a building is often the most important aspect from a design standpoint, as it sets the tone for the rest of the building. From the engineering perspective, the façade is also of great importance due to its impact on energy efficiency . For historical façades, many local zoning regulations or other laws greatly restrict or even forbid their alteration. The word

2652-581: Was originally called, soon experienced an increase in real estate development. By 1915, the bridge was overcrowded with traffic, and subway tracks were built above the plaza. The Queensboro Plaza station , a large two-level subway hub for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation and Interborough Rapid Transit Company , opened above Queens Plaza in 1916-1917. The construction of the Queensboro Plaza station necessitated

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2704-437: Was then incorporated into the design plans for Sven, where it became the building's commercial base. Sven is located at 29-59 Northern Boulevard (next to Queens Plaza ). It occupies a trapezoidal plot bounded by 41st Avenue to the west, Queens Plaza North (also 41st Avenue) to the south, Northern Boulevard to the east, and 40th Drive to the north. The main residential tower is 762 feet (232 m) tall. When completed in 2021,

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