In the Manhattan enclave of Grammercy, a mermaid medallion from the building Naftali Group’s The Willow replaced delivers character and historical relevance in its new setting within The Willow’s Mermaid Room.
Naftali Group
New York City is forever moving toward the future. But for the architects, designers and developers sculpting the city’s newest residential and commercial properties, there’s a growing inclination to look backward as a way to anchor the buildings of today and tomorrow to New York’s forgotten past.
A few examples will illustrate the trend.
At Malt Drive, a new three-tower residential development in the Hunter’s Point South enclave of Queens, developer, owner and manager TF Cornerstone (TFC) ensured a mooring post, star anchor plates, roof vents and other vestiges of the parcel’s smokestack heritage would find their way into the building as sculptural elements. Not to be outdone, the developers of The Max, a 44-story residential apartment tower on West 57th Street, reclaimed the “W57” garage sign, modernized it with LEDs and installed it as the focal point of the amenity floor.
Rare details
“New York is a city layered with extraordinary history, and there’s a growing desire to acknowledge what makes New York feel like New York,” says Danielle Naftali, executive vice president of marketing and design at Naftali Group.
When her firm launched work on The Willow. A 19-story boutique condominium at 201 East 23rd Street in Manhattan’s Gramercy-Kips Bay district, Naftali discovered and decided to preserve a mermaid medallion attached to the original structure.
She brought the medallion to Rick Cook, founding partner at architectural firm COOKFOX, as well as her Rockwell Group interior design partners. Her intention: To learn how the piece might be thoughtfully reborn as a touchpoint in The Willow’s history.
Ultimately the team created a complete “Mermaid Room” amenity around the relic.
“In neighborhoods as storied as Gramercy, these kinds of rare details create a deeper connection between the building and its surroundings, allowing the past to inform the present in a way that feels intentional and respectful,” Naftali says.
“Looking ahead, we see this more nuanced approach to restoration becoming a more considered part of how projects engage with the history of their sites . . . Grounding a new residential building in its history gives it an authenticity that can’t be manufactured. It creates a true sense of place.”
Inspirational touches
Developers’ tendency to connect new buildings to their past goes hand in hand with the desire to identify underused sites for new residential and mixed-use development, says Zoe Elghanayan, principal and senior vice president of TF Cornerstone. “At Malt Drive, we saw its history as a sugar cane processing facility-turned-beer distribution center intriguing,” she says.
“[We] sought to find a way to engage in its historic preservation. By salvaging and incorporating relics our team came across embedded in the site, we applied a design ethos rooted in stewardship and respect for place. The artifacts have become part of the fabric of Malt Drive. Not just as decorative elements, but as touchpoints that give the buildings personality and depth.”
Historical anchoring provides the architecture with “something to push against,” she says. The newer buildings don’t just stand alone but as a kind of continuation of a lineage that extends generations into the past. Incorporating these historic curios in newly developed properties isn’t lost on the people who move in to or otherwise visit, Elghanayan adds. They are pulled toward them and are fascinated enough to ask questions. What is this? Where did they find it? Why am I seeing it here?
Elghanayan doesn’t see the preservation and incorporation of these remnants as a trend, but rather a means of forging a more holistic design.
“When done well, it creates a meaningful dialogue where design can tell us where we are — and why it matters.”