See dazzling new renderings of Union Square’s Tammany Hall overhaul

The redevelopment of Union Square‘s Tammany Hall is moving full steam ahead. As CityRealty reports, leasing has launched, and along with a brand new website, a slew of new renderings showing off the historic building’s impending transformation have also been revealed.

Earlier this month, developer Reading International secured $57.5 million in financing to overhaul the landmark into a 73,322-square-foot mixed-use building topped off with a sparkling, six-story glass dome. The 1929 structure, most recently used as a theater, has been in redevelopment since 2014 and started renovations in January 2016.

The design is the work of BKSK Architects and their plans were approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2015. As the images revealed here show, the new Tammany Hall—now marketed as 44 Union Square East—will include a complete gut renovation and the construction of four stories of contiguous retail space in its base, and three levels of office space geared towards financial and TAMI tenants in the upper levels and the dome. The facade of the building will also be restored, and new windows, entrances, and signage will be implemented.

According to previous reports, the dome design takes inspiration from the turtle upon which Lenape Chief Tamanend (who Tammany Hall derives its name) stands in a likeness erected in Philadelphia, as well as the Lenni-Lenape nation’s use of the term “Turtle Island.” CityRealty adds that BKSK also justified the seemingly out-of-the-box design by citing other Neo Georgian-styled buildings that had acquired similar domes.

As 6sqft previously wrote, the Tammany Hall dates back to the 1920s and was used by the Democratic Party machine, the Tammany Society. It was here that the organization helped secure voting rights for immigrants, pushed for Democratic nominations at the city and state level, and shaped politics and policy-making from the late 18th century into the late 20th century. Tammany Hall would eventually be sold in 1943 to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and The Roundabout Theater and the New York Film Academy would later make a home in the building. The Tammany Society itself ultimately dissolved in the late 1960s.

[Via CityRealty]

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