56 Leonard Street (known colloquially as the

Jenga Jenga is a game of physical skill created by British board game designer and author Leslie Scott and marketed by Hasbro. Players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block removed is then placed on t ...

Building or Jenga Tower ) is an , 57-story skyscraper on

Leonard Street Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate from the Old High German ''Leonhard'' containing the prefix ''levon'' ("lion") from the Greek Λέων ("lion") through the Latin '' ...

in the neighborhood of

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The building was designed by the Swiss architecture firm

Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

, which describes the building as "houses stacked in the sky." It is the tallest structure in Tribeca. The building has 145 condominium residences priced between US$3.5 million and US$50 million. Residences range in size from and include two to five bedrooms all with private outdoor spaces. As of May 2013, 70% of the building had sold. According to building developer Izak Senbahar, the building was 92% sold in seven months. In June 2013, a penthouse at 56 Leonard went into contract for US$47 million, making it the most expensive residential property ever sold below

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

. The building was completed in 2017.

History

Alexico Group's Izak Senbahar purchased the land and the air rights in 2007 from the

New York Law School New York Law School (NYLS) is a private law school in Tribeca, New York City. NYLS has a full-time day program and a part-time evening program. NYLS's faculty includes 54 full-time and 59 adjunct professors. Notable faculty members include E ...

for

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

150 million. Construction began that same year. Foundation work on this tower began in 2008, but was shut down before the end of the year when the project was put on hold. After nearly four years, construction finally resumed in October 2012. In 2013, the developers secured a US$350 million loan from a syndicate led by

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

. On September 2, 2022, Venezuelan businessman jumped to his death from his apartment on the 18th floor of the tower. It was ruled as a suicide by authorities. Arnal was serving as the

chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

Bed Bath & Beyond Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. is an American chain of domestic merchandise retail stores. The chain operates many stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Bed Bath & Beyond was founded in 1971. It is counted among the Fortune 5 ...

, which had been undergoing financial crisis for the past few months. Arnal was also one of the targets of a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit with regard to Bed Bath & Beyond's stock price.

Architecture

56 Leonard is designed by the 2001

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

winning Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron.

Anish Kapoor Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...

, known for the public sculpture ''

Cloud Gate ''Cloud Gate'' is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Pa ...

'' in

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, designed a similar sculpture to sit at the base of the building. Herzog & de Meuron also designed the building's interiors, which include custom designed kitchens, fixtures, bathrooms, and fireplaces.

Goldstein, Hill & West Architects Hill West Architects (formerly Goldstein, Hill & West Architects) is a New York City based architecture firm which works on the planning and design of high-rise residential and hospitality buildings, retail structures and multi-use complexes. The ...

LLP is the architect of record. There is of amenity spaces on the ninth and tenth floors, including a pool, a 25-seat screening room, a private dining room, and a children's playroom. The building has a total of ten elevators; owners will share a hallway with at most one other apartment. The developers also figured a generator on the ninth floor into the plans. There are eight full-floor apartments at the top, ranging from , with ceilings. In addition, the building features a double-height lobby sheathed in "gleaming" black granite.

Awards

* 2017 Engineering Excellence National Recognition Award by ACEC * 2017 Best Projects Winner in the Residential/ Hospitality Category by

Engineering News-Record ''Engineering News-Record'' (widely known as ''ENR'') is an American weekly magazine that provides news, analysis, data and opinion for the construction industry worldwide. It is widely regarded as one of the construction industry's most authori ...

* 2019 Named as one of New York City’s 10 Most Important Buildings of the Past Decade, Curbed New York, a publication for American real estate and urban design.

In media

The building was featured in Season 1, Episode 1 of ''How Did They Build That?: Cantilevers & Lifts'' by the Smithsonian Channel.

References

External links