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If New York is starting to look a little different than you remember, just wait. The nature of the city is that it’s always changing (yay! boo! OK!) and just because your favorite local restaurant is now a cannabis shop, there are still so many reasons to love this metropolis.
Well, brace yourselves, because yet another brand new development may be in the works, as big as Hudson Yards, but this time on the East side.
Bjarke Ingels Group, a Copenhagen-based architecture firm has shared renderings for the proposed Freedom Plaza Project, a complex planned for just south of the United Nations Headquarters on 48th Street. It’ll turn currently underutilized land (where the Field of Light attraction is) into a complex with two 615-foot-tall towers that will contain hotels, retail space, public waterfront space, a casino, and, what every Manhattan neighborhood needs: a sky bridge with a rooftop infinity pool connecting two skyscrapers. There will also be a Museum of Freedom and Democracy built on this plot.
The renderings are modern, aspirational and wild, with buildings that would completely transform the East River skyline.
Of course, renderings aren’t final, and much can change before construction. Some of the plans depend on the developer securing a sought-after casino license, which would then also require the addition of affordable housing in the vicinity.
"When Le Corbusier, Niemeyer and Harrison designed the UN Secretariat Building [in the 1940s], they grafted an oasis of international modernism onto the dense urban grid of Manhattan, creating a park on the river framed by towers and pavilions," Ingels said in a statement. "We continue to build on these architectural principles by uniting three city blocks to form a public green space reaching from 1st Avenue to the East River overlook, creating a green connection all the way to the water’s edge.”