The Manhattan House

Built in 1951, 490 residences across 21 floors.

200 East 66th Street, 10065

Manhattan House was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill with Albert Mayer and Julian Whittlesey, and completed in 1951. It is twenty one stories and it was the first of New York's white brick apartment buildings, though the brick is closer to a self cleaning light grey than to white.

The plan is an H. Two wings and a recessed centre give almost every apartment light on more than one side and a through draught, and the balconies cantilever off the face rather than being cut into it. The lobby is glazed floor to ceiling and the block long garden behind is part of the same idea, which is a building that treats outside air as something to design with rather than to seal against.

The H plan is what shapes work inside. Rooms are lit from two directions and the light moves through the day rather than holding one flat exposure, so a treatment that behaves on a single aspect will not behave here. The balconies interrupt the glass line with a door where a continuous run might be expected, which decides where a long piece of furniture or a millwork run can sit.

Within walking distance

Building facts

New York City Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output, version 26v1. Tax lot 1014207501.