Kips Bay Towers

300 East 33rd Street | also 330 East 33rd Street, 333 East 30th Street | Kips Bay | built 1962

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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1956

    June

    Relocating 100 homing pigeons is among the hurdles slowing demolition on the Kips Bay site

    In 1956 the Kips Bay site was still being cleared of older buildings, before the towers rose. As of June 1956 just seven buildings had come down, and Robert Moses told the developer to speed up or give up its contract. Besides rehousing displaced tenants and finding a mortgage, the sponsor had to relocate about 100 homing pigeons kept atop a tenement at 328 East 33rd Street.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1957

    June

    Webb & Knapp takes over the project and I. M. Pei trades a Picasso for fifty saplings

    Webb & Knapp took over the NYU-Bellevue project from University Center, Inc. in June 1957, renamed it Kips Bay Plaza and cut the plan to two 20-story towers. SOM's Gordon Bunshaft advised I. M. Pei against taking the architect's job, and Pei agreed, but William Zeckendorf assigned him anyway. Pei wanted a Picasso sculpture for the central open space; Zeckendorf said he could pick the sculpture or fifty saplings, and Pei chose the trees.

    “Zeckendorf told Pei that he could have either the sculpture or fifty saplings. Pei chose the trees…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1960

    December

    The first of I. M. Pei's concrete-grid Kips Bay towers opens

    Built as middle-income rentals under urban renewal, the project was taken over in 1957 by William Zeckendorf's Webb & Knapp, which hired I. M. Pei and cut the plan to two 20-story slabs. Ground was broken on March 31, 1959, and the south tower opened in December 1960; the north tower was finished in 1965. Their load-bearing concrete walls, with windows set 14.5 inches deep, form a grid that influenced later projects such as Society Hill Towers in Philadelphia.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1965

    The second Kips Bay Towers building rises across the private garden

    Architects I. M. Pei, James Ingo Freed, and S. J. Kessler complete the second of Kips Bay Towers' two 20-story concrete towers, five years after the first opened. The finished complex applies Pei and engineer August Komendant's window-truss-wall system across 1,120 apartments, arranged around a three-acre private garden between the two buildings.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1972

    October

    William Zeckendorf Jr. buys Kips Bay Plaza from Alcoa, saying he believes in the city's housing market

    In October 1972 a group led by William Zeckendorf Jr. bought Kips Bay Plaza and the adjacent shopping center from Alcoa, paying over $20 million. The younger Zeckendorf said he strongly believed in the future of the city's residential market. The purchase came seven years after his father's firm, Webb & Knapp, the original developer, went bankrupt, and the towers were renamed Kips Bay Towers.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1981

    November

    Kips Bay Towers converts from rentals to condominiums

    The two towers, with 1,118 apartments on a three-block site between First and Second Avenues and 30th and 33rd Streets, won the Albert S. Bard Award in 1965 and took the Kips Bay Towers name in 1972. The rental complex was converted to condominiums, with the conversion taking effect in November 1981.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1983

    Kips Bay Towers fences off its garden and playground, drawing a backlash from neighbors

    Since the complex opened, the garden and playground at Kips Bay Towers had been open to the public. In 1983 they were fenced off and limited to residents, with security concerns about the growing homeless population cited as the reason. The change set off a backlash from the surrounding community.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2009

    Kips Bay Towers installs the city's largest rooftop solar array

    Residents of Kips Bay Towers add a rooftop solar installation producing 54 kilowatts of electricity, described at the time as the largest such array in New York City. The project follows a multi-year restoration of I. M. Pei's concrete facades that earns the complex a 2007 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 16 buildings with stories in Kips Bay