The Octagon Building by Rockwell and Becker

The Octagon Building by Rockwell and Becker
What do you get when you mix integrated architecture, utopian planning, preservation and the chicest of interiors with an historic landmark building dating back to 1839?

You get Roosevelt Island's latest addition, The Octagon, a 500-unit luxury "Green" residential apartment complex.

The Octagon Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was originally designed in 1839 by Alexander Jackson Davis as the entry and administrative spaces for the New York Pauper and Lunatic Asylum.

The building later served for most of its history as the Metropolitan Hospital, but after being vacated and then suffering two fires in the 1990's, only the 8 walls of the Octagon tower remained.

Bruce Becker, the Octagon's developer and architect, and President of Becker + Becker Associates, has enlisted the building trades, historic preservationists and environmentalists to develop a waterfront apartment community that helps bring to fruition Philip Johnson's utopian master plan for Roosevelt Island.

The existing structure is being fully rehabilitated with its earlier grand cupola to mirror how it appeared in the early 1900's.

The original interior seven-story "flying" circular staircase was so mesmerizing that an entranced Charles Dickens wrote about it in his travelogue American Notes.