By Jared Ebersole in Video 15 Oct 2026

The Water That Steadies One Madison

One Madison’s projecting glass apartments make a spectacle of Manhattan’s skyline. Hidden concrete walls and three rooftop water tanks make the slender tower comfortable to inhabit.

At the southern edge of Madison Square Park, One Madison looks like a stack of glass rooms sliding out of a narrow tower. Its projecting volumes interrupt the straight climb of the facade, turning apartments into conspicuous objects in the sky. The architecture advertises openness: more windows, more exposure, more Manhattan.

Keeping that experience comfortable required something considerably less glamorous. At roof level, three concrete tanks hold water that helps control the building’s movement. The same tower that makes a show of extending outward depends on an almost invisible system for managing how it sways. The Skyscraper Center documents the rooftop dampers.

Designed by CetraRuddy and originally known as One Madison Park, the residential tower rises roughly 620 feet. Its position at the foot of Madison Avenue gives it an unusually prominent role: a narrow building becomes the visual endpoint of a major street. Its bronze glass shaft and lighter projecting cubes also establish a deliberately contemporary presence beside the neighborhood’s older architecture. ARCHITECT’s original design review and CetraRuddy’s project description explain that approach.

Where it is

One Madison

23 East 22nd Street, Manhattan, New York

Residential entrance south of Madison Square Park. Related’s building announcement identifies the address.

The tower’s silhouette grew from an awkward construction problem. An existing three-story building occupied part of the site to the east. To begin work before the entire site could be cleared, the design team arranged for part of the tower to cantilever over it. An obstruction near the ground became the starting point for the architecture above.

The projecting portions developed into glass blocks ranging from four to six stories tall. Between them, the tower pulls back, allowing roofs below to become terraces for residences above. That alternating rhythm gives the facade its recognizable profile. It also turns the transition between one block and the next into usable outdoor space. The Skyscraper Center’s project account describes both the construction constraint and the terrace arrangement.

Air-rights purchases helped make the narrow site’s vertical development possible, according to ARCHITECT’s 2010 review. But permission to build upward only established the opportunity. The architects still had to create apartments whose layouts and views justified the project’s ambitions. On a small floor plate, the location of the structure becomes inseparable from the quality of the rooms. ARCHITECT

CetraRuddy describes the tower’s height-to-width ratio as 12:1. That proportion explains much of its visual character: the eye reads an exceptionally thin shaft, with the projecting cubes giving it a changing outline. The bronze-toned glass was intended to relate to surrounding masonry, while the lighter volumes make the individual projections easier to distinguish. These are carefully composed differences in color and mass, rather than a uniform glass extrusion. CetraRuddy

Inside, the structural strategy supports the same architectural ambition. Concrete shear walls cluster in a cross-shaped arrangement between rooms and service shafts, preserving the perimeter for windows. High-performance concrete helps provide the stiffness and strength required by the slender form. The structural work is substantial, but its placement allows the apartments to feel open toward the city. The Skyscraper Center

That relationship is central to One Madison’s appeal. A view is more than a piece of scenery seen through glass. It depends on where a resident can stand, how far the eye can travel across a room, and what interrupts the edge of the floor. By concentrating much of the lateral structure internally, the designers made the engineering serve the experience they were selling. CetraRuddy explicitly connects the building’s structural system with its open planning and unobstructed outlooks. CetraRuddy

Strength, however, is only part of the problem. Wind-driven movement can make occupants uncomfortable, so engineers also address the building’s dynamic response. Damping provides a way to dissipate energy and moderate that movement while preserving an ambitious architectural form. Engineering consultant RWDI identifies occupant comfort as a central reason for adding such systems to tall buildings. RWDI’s explanation of motion control

At One Madison, the roof tanks are U-shaped tuned liquid column dampers, integrated into the structure and filled with water. Their purpose is to reduce the acceleration of the tower’s motion. The Skyscraper Center

The underlying mechanism is surprisingly approachable. A liquid column oscillates inside a U-shaped container, interacting with the movement of the structure. As water passes through a restricted opening, resistance dissipates energy. The liquid therefore supplies both moving mass and a means of damping vibration. This is an engineered hydraulic response, with the water’s movement doing useful work. Research published by the American Society of Civil Engineers explains the mechanism.

The effect matters most in the ordinary experience of occupying the building. Someone sitting beside a window is interested in the skyline, a conversation, or dinner. A successful motion-control system helps keep the structure from intruding on that experience. Rooftop equipment and interior walls become the quiet counterparts to the conspicuous glass facade.

The project’s financial history was considerably less controlled. One Madison was the first major development undertaken by Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs. It defaulted on its debt in 2009, and disputes subsequently kept the nearly finished tower entangled in court proceedings for more than two years. In April 2012, a federal court confirmed a plan to bring it out of bankruptcy, with creditors including Related, HFZ Capital Group, and CIM Group gaining control. The Wall Street Journal’s contemporary report, reproduced by Related, records that transition.

Sales officially relaunched on September 16, 2013. Related’s announcement emphasized panoramic views, new interiors, private amenities, and an entrance designed by BKSK Architects on East 22nd Street. The commercial pitch still depended on the spatial qualities embedded in the original design: height, openness, and unusually broad exposure to the city. Related’s sales announcement

Seen from the park, the projecting apartments remain the obvious attraction. Their apparent lightness is the achievement of a much heavier and more complicated building behind the glass. Concrete holds the form together; moving water moderates its response to wind. The architecture puts the view on display while keeping much of the work required to enjoy it out of sight.