1865 Broadway


1865 Broadway is a building in New York City owned by AvalonBay Communities and designed by architect Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. It is located on the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper West Side, on Broadway between 61st and 62nd Streets. The new structure replaced another SOM-designed building completed in 1965.

History

Original building

The headquarters of the American Bible Society originally stood on the site. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill designed the original structure. It incorporated some Biblical symbolism, inspired by its anchor tenant. John Kriskiewicz, a Manhattan-based historian of architecture, referred to the original 1865 Broadway as “structurally expressive” but also expressed that it “might have left the public cold.” The Bible Society placed the building on the market in 2014.

New structure

AvalonBay purchased the building from the Society in 2015 for $300 million, after the organization announced it intended to move its headquarters to Philadelphia. Like the former building, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill designed the new building. 1865 Broadway topped out in December 2017. The building will contain mostly residential space, with a mix of apartments for rent and condominiums for sale.
SOM took inspiration from the facade of I. M. Pei's Brutalist Kips Bay Towers.