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44 Union Square
Occupancy
2021Location
Union Square, NYCClient
Reading International, Inc. (RDI)Tammany Hall sits prominently at the northeast corner of Union Square Park in Manhattan. The new building expands the usable square footage of the historic building and adds an iconic anchor to Union Square. The building’s former life as the last headquarters for the political machine, Tammany Hall, inspired a daring, iconic design that remembers New York City history while anchoring the Park with a proud monumental structure.
The origins of the Tammany organization include its namesake Chief Tamanend – the leader of the Lenape People – who signed a treaty of peaceful coexistence with William Penn in 1680. Using symbolism from the Lenape creation story, a glass dome inspired by the form of a rising turtle shell has been added to the building bringing an additional 30,000 sf to the interior. The contemporary dome is meant to symbolize Tammany Hall’s long-forgotten background as a populist social club, promoting a voice for all.
The restoration and expansion of the building includes sensitively preserving two façades, new bronze storefronts in the likeness of the original 1928 design, and a 3-story rooftop addition, composed of a self-supporting free form shell grid dome atop a reconstructed hipped roof of steel-and-glass with dappled gray terra cotta sunshades. Solar insulation, light infiltration, glare probability studies as well as investigation of glass dome precedents informed the glass mapping over the dome structure and the development of sunshades and other glass shading solutions.
The design was unanimously approved by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Awards
Chicago Athenaeum, The American Architecture Award for 2022, 2022
ACEC NY Engineering Excellence Award, Building/Technology Systems Diamond Award, 2022
Society of American Registered Architects National, Design Award of Honor in the Renovation, Restoration, and Adaptive Re-use category, 2021
Retrofit Magazine’s Metamorphosis, Addition Award, 2021
Architizer A+ Awards, Architecture + Collaboration Popular Choice Winner, 2021
Architizer A+ Awards, Architecture + Collaboration Jury Winner, 2021
AIANY Award, Award of Merit, 2020
Society of America Registered Architects New York Council, Award of Merit, 2020
ENR New York’s 2020, Safety Best Project, 2020
ENR New York’s 2020, Renovation/Restoration Best Project , 2020
AIA QUAD 2017 Design Award, Honor Award - Unbuilt, 2017
Architizer A+ Awards, Typology Winner, Commercial - Unbuilt, 2017
Press
“The Story of an Iconic Glass Dome,” Architectural Products, November 2022
“Visual Dialogue: Tammany Hall Receives a Rooftop Expansion that Honors Its Namesake, the Lenape Chief Tamanend,” Retrofit Magazine, January 2022
“Committing to the Beauty of Lenape Art,” The Met , December 2021
“Tammany Hall’s High Tech Glass Dome Honors New York’s Original People,” Intelligent Glass Solutions, October 2021
“World-Architects US Building of the Week,” World-Architects, August 2021
“BKSK’s redevelopment of the historic landmark Tammany Hall animates the corner of Union Square and creates a visual dialogue between contemporary and historic architecture,” Global Design News, August 2021
“Turtle-Inspired Dome Tops Former Tammany Hall,” Civil Engineering Source ASCE's News and Information Hub, May 2021
“14 Adaptive Reuse Projects from 2020 Show Great Design Doesn’t Mean New Construction,” Metropolis Magazine, January 2021
“Tammany Hall’s High-tech Glass Dome Honors New York’s Original People,” Retrofit Magazine, January 2021
“BKSK Architect’s Tammany Hall Restoration Draws on Lenape Symbolism,” Metropolis Magazine, December 2020
“Go Inside the New Glass Dome Atop Union Squares Tammany Hall,” 6sqft, November 2020
“Blessing the New Tammany Hall | First People’s Week,” The Greene Space, October 2020
“BKSK adds glass dome to roof of Tammany Hall building in New York,” Dezeen, August 2020
“Functional Creativity with Ornamental Metals: Tammany Hall (44 Union Square): Advanced building technology reinvents a landmark,” Architect's Newspaper, June 2020
“Advanced Building Technology Reinvents a Landmark,” Architects Newspaper, May 2020
“Home in Lenapehoking,” Urban Omnibus, February 2020
“Tammany Hall,” The Architect's Newspaper, August 2019
“Under Construction: The Old Tammany Hall Gets New Life as 44 Union Square,” Commercial Observer, July 2018
“Second Time Around: 8 Daring Adaptive Reuse Projects,” Architizer, June 2017
“Union Square: Tech firms are driving area’s commercial growth,” The Villager, May 2017
“Looking up: From tech to Tammany, park to poké,” The Villager, April 2017
“See the sparkly new glass dome coming to Union Square,” Time Out, February 2017
“New Renderings/Video of BKSK’s Dazzling Commercial Diagrid Dome Coming to Union Square | CityRealty,” CityRealty, January 2017
“Grafting an Expansion on a Landmark,” In the News (formerly eOculus), August 2016
COLLABORATORS
Owner – Reading International Inc.
Owner’s Representative – Edifice Real Estate Partners
Structural Engineers – Thornton Tomasetti
Exterior Envelope Engineers – Buro Happold
MEP Engineers – Dagher Engineering
Construction Manager –CNY Group
Dome Steel and Glass Fabricator/Installer – Josef Gartner, a division of Permasteelisa
Historic Preservation Consultant – Higgins Quasebarth & Partners
Acoustics – Lewis S. Goodfriend & Associates
Vertical Transportation Engineers – IROS Elevator
Energy and Commissioning Services – OLA Consulting Engineers
Geotech – RA Consultants
Community Relations – Beckelman+Capalino
Photography by Christopher Payne/Esto, Francis Dzikowski, Ralph D’Angelo, Field Condition and BKSK Architects; Renderings by BKSK Architects
"This is a gift to the city.…masterful. "
NYC Landmarks Preservation Commissioner