Announcing 6sqft’s 2023 Building of the Year!

December 28, 2023

All renderings of 50 West 66th Street courtesy of Recent Spaces

The votes are in. 6sqft’s 2023 Building of the Year is 50 West 66th Street, a striking skyscraper currently under construction on the Upper West Side. Soon to be the neighborhood’s tallest building, 50 West 66th Street snagged first place in our annual competition, receiving 334 votes of the nearly 1,200 total votes cast. Developed by Extell and designed by Snøhetta, the 775-foot-tall residential tower will offer 127 luxury homes and over 50,000 square feet of amenities.

Rendering courtesy of Recent Spaces

Perfectly positioned between Central Park and Lincoln Center, the Upper West Side tower has been on our radar for several years. Extell first filed permits for the project in 2017, but legal challenges related to the proposed height of the mechanical floors, designed to be unusually high to increase the building’s overall height, stalled construction for months.

50 West 66th Street got the official stamp of approval in 2020 and construction is currently well underway, with its topping out expected next year. Upon completion, the building will surpass the neighborhood’s current tallest tower at 200 Amsterdam Avenue by roughly 100 feet.

snohetta, 50 west 66th street, upper west side
Rendering courtesy of Binyan Studios/ Snøhetta

Designed by Snøhetta with SLCE as the executive architect, 50 West 66th Street’s geometric facade is inspired by Manhattan’s geological past. As the building rises, the bulk is “carved way, splitting the tower volume into two,” as the architects describe. Above a shared amenity terrace on the 16th floor, the tower gets more slender as it rises with the “opposing corners of the building sliced away to create balconies.”

The street-level podium is covered in hand-set and textured limestone with bronze and glass storefronts. The building’s design also incorporates the synagogue of Congregation Habonim, which has a separate entrance on 65th Street.

Amenities at the 69-story building include an outdoor pool on the 16th floor, a state-of-the-art fitness center, and a residents’ lounge and landscaped terrace on the 20th floor. Current availabilities at 50 West 66th Street start at $4,600,000 for a two-bedroom and go up to $85,000,000 for a six-bedroom penthouse with two private loggias.

Overall rankings:

  1. 50 West 66th Street: 334 votes
  2. 100 Flabush aka 505 State Street: 154 votes
  3. The Huron: 126 votes
  4. The Brooklyn Tower: 111 votes
  5. One Wall Street: 104 votes
  6. The Greenwich by Rafael Viñoly: 84 votes
  7. One High Line: 68 votes
  8. 520 Fifth Avenue: 60 votes
  9. Monogram: 52 votes
  10. The Belnord: 37 votes
  11. The Cortland: 28 votes
  12. The Giorgio Armani Residences: 23 votes

Thank you for voting! Congratulations to all teams represented.

See all past Building of the Year winners here:

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  1. T

    You have DESTROYED the skyline of Central Park. I was aghast walking toward the park with that monster out of scale building with lack of respect for New Yorkers who love the only solitude they can find in the park.. It’s an eyesore. Quelle horreur! That towering monstrosity is seen from every vantage point. From Fifth Avenue, Lincoln Center, in the middle of the park from east to west. Shame on the greed of developers. Surely the people who inhabit the neighborhood didn’t have their vote counted.

  2. D

    Horrible, hideous, destructive, devastating.