Kips Bay Towers
300 East 33rd Street · Kips Bay, Manhattan
Kips Bay Towers is a pair of 20-story towers designed by I.M. Pei, with 1,118 condominium residences around a private three-acre garden between First and Second Avenues and East 30th and 33rd Streets.
At a glance
- Type
- Condominium (converted from rentals in 1981)
- Built
- 1960-65
- Height
- 20 stories per tower
- Residences
- 1,118
- Architect
- I.M. Pei with S. J. Kessler & Sons
- Developer
- Webb & Knapp (William Zeckendorf)
- Service
- 24-hour doormen in both towers, on-site supers and management
- Amenities
- Private three-acre garden with playground and basketball court, gym, community room, laundry rooms, bike rooms, storage, garage
- Pets
- Not allowed
I.M. Pei's concrete experiment on a three-acre garden
Kips Bay Towers began as a Title I slum clearance project. In the early 1950s the city condemned three blocks of mostly pre-1900 tenements between First and Second Avenues and East 30th and 33rd Streets, closed 31st and 32nd Streets to form a superblock, and handed the stalled project to William Zeckendorf's Webb & Knapp in 1957. Zeckendorf assigned it to I.M. Pei, who cut the original plan of five 14-story buildings down to two long towers facing away from each other, with a large open space between them. Ground was broken in March 1959, the south tower opened to renters in December 1960, and the north tower followed by 1965. The complex, first called Kips Bay Plaza, won federal design honors in 1964 and the Albert S. Bard Award in 1965.
The towers were Pei's first residential project in New York and among the city's earliest examples of Brutalism. Working with engineer August Komendant, Pei cast the facades in place as load-bearing concrete grids, so the walls themselves form the structure. Deep-set windows with rounded corners sit 14.5 inches inside the frame, shading the apartments and giving the slabs their honeycomb look. Because the facade carries the load, interiors have few columns, and Pei placed many three-bedroom units at the tower ends. The design was a prototype for Pei's Society Hill Towers in Philadelphia and Silver Towers in Greenwich Village.
The complex was built as middle-income rentals. After William Zeckendorf Jr. bought it in 1972 and renamed it Kips Bay Towers, Lee National Corporation took control in 1979 and pursued a non-eviction condominium conversion. The offering plan became effective in November 1981, but a dispute over a 1950s urban renewal covenant froze sales until a state judge upheld the conversion in 1984. The garden, once open to the public, was fenced for residents in 1983. A 2002 to 2006 facade restoration earned a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award, and the complex is not a designated city landmark.
Josh's view of Kips Bay Towers
What you won't find on a listing portal, in Josh's own words.
Who it suits
Ideal for those wanting a large apartment in a building loaded with amenities. Perfect for easy access to NYU and the best of Kips Bay/Murray Hill!
Buying here
This building has it all. There is a large private park between the two Kips Bay Towers that provides a true suburban feel!
The best lines
Any of the combined units are very nice. This building offers tremendous value for the money.
Mistakes buyers make
Small and boutique is not always better when it comes to New York City. Sometimes a larger complex with its own amenities can feel like an escape from the everyday rat race.
What a listing won't tell you
The scale and size of this complex! It is enormous, but somehow it has a boutique feel.
Inside Kips Bay Towers
The towers from the garden and from the street.
Living at Kips Bay Towers
The complex fills the superblock between First and Second Avenues from East 30th to East 33rd Street, at the eastern edge of Kips Bay. NYU Langone's Tisch Hospital sits directly across First Avenue, NYU's Greenberg Hall medical student residence occupies the First Avenue frontage of the same superblock, and the Kips Bay Plaza shopping center along Second Avenue has included a Fairway Market and the AMC Kips Bay multiplex, which AMC has said it will close by the end of 2026.
- Subway: 6 train at 33rd Street (about 0.4 mile west) and 28th Street (about 0.45 mile); 4, 5, 6, and 7 at Grand Central-42nd Street about 0.6 mile; M15 and M15 SBS buses on First and Second Avenues
- Parks: the residents-only three-acre garden at the center of the complex, plus St. Vartan Park (2.76 acres, First to Second Avenue, East 35th to 36th Street) two blocks north
- Highways and ferry: NYC Ferry East 34th Street landing (East River routes) about a quarter mile east at East 35th Street and the FDR Drive; FDR Drive Exit 8 at East 34th Street; Queens-Midtown Tunnel entrance at East 36th Street east of Second Avenue
- Hospitals and landmarks: NYU Langone Tisch Hospital (550 First Avenue) across First Avenue, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue (462 First Avenue at 27th Street) a few blocks south, and Kips Bay Plaza shopping center on Second Avenue
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Open the tool →Sources: Wikipedia, Kips Bay Towers · NYC PLUTO (NYC Open Data), BBL 1009367501 · ACRIS Real Property Legals (NYC Open Data), Manhattan Block 936 · ACRIS Real Property Master (NYC Open Data), doc_type DEED · The New York Times, 'Kips Bay Prices Rise 40% After Moratorium' (July 29, 1984) · The New York Times, 'Condominium Sales at Kips Bay Towers Are Upheld by Judge' (May 10, 1984) · The New York Times, 'Conversion Plan Given to Tenants at Kips Bay' (November 23, 1980) · Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Kips Bay Plaza · Kips Bay Towers Condominium, Living Here (amenities) · Kips Bay Towers, About · CityRealty, Kips Bay Towers · StreetEasy, Kips Bay Towers complex · Corcoran, Kips Bay Towers building page · Compass, Kips Bay Towers building page
Photos: Photo by Ajay Suresh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kips_Bay_Towers_(55314217360).jpg) · Photo by DearEdward, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kips_Bay_2_(5095005445).jpg) · Photo by Beyond My Ken, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped
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