8 Spruce Street, Skyscraper in Financial District, Manhattan, United States
8 Spruce Street is a 76-story, 870-foot (265 m) residential skyscraper in Lower Manhattan, designed by Frank Gehry. Its tower is clad in about 10,500 brushed stainless steel panels, only around 2,000 of them identical, which form an undulating facade with bay windows of varying widths. A six-story brick podium holds a public school and medical offices, and the tower steps back at the 7th, 24th, 40th and 52nd floors to create terraces.
The lot served as parking for New York Downtown Hospital before construction began in 2006. Designed by Frank Gehry, the tower opened in February 2011 as the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. Its lower floors house P.S. 397, a public school that opened in September 2011. Blackstone bought the building for $930 million in June 2022.
The lower floors hold a public school where children work and play on a rooftop area, while renters use separate entrances higher up. This sharing of one building between a school and private homes is part of everyday life in the area, visible from the street as students arrive and leave.
Visitors can easily spot the tower from City Hall Park or while approaching the Brooklyn Bridge, which helps with orientation in the neighborhood. The surrounding plazas are open and allow a close view of the wavy metal surface without entering the building.
The exterior is made of many differently shaped metal pieces that catch light at odd angles, so the tower seems to shift as clouds pass. From some nearby streets, the building appears wider or narrower depending on where you stand, which surprises people who see it only from photographs.
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