The new part is the tower at right. During the boom years of the late 1980's, it seemed that apartment prices in Manhattan were going so high that it was viable to build anywhere. The Union Theological Seminary has a much smaller building than the zoning for its lot allows, so it would have been legally permissible to build this building. When they decided not to, the developer tried to build a similar tower on a vacant lot next to the Manhattan School of Music a block to the north. Robert A.M. Stern was the architect both times, and the design upholds his famously high standards for historical appropriateness.

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