Beekman Tower. Project by Frank Owen Gehry

Beekman Tower. Project by Frank Owen Gehry

Beekman Tower, also known as New York by Gehry and 8 Spruce Street is a 76-story skyscraper designed by architect Frank Gehry in the New York City borough of Manhattan at 8 Spruce Street, just south of City Hall Plaza and the Brooklyn Bridge. It is being marketed as "New York by Gehry at Eight Spruce Street".

8 Spruce Street is the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. The building was developed by Forest City Ratner, designed by Frank Gehry, and constructed by Kreisler Borg Florman. It contains a public elementary school, which the Department of Education owns. It will open in February of 2011. Its structural frame is made of reinforced concrete.

PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The school is sheathed reddish-tan brick, and covers 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²) of the first five floors of the building. It will host over 600 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classes. A fourth floor roof deck will hold 5,000 square feet (460 m²) of outdoor play space.

LUXURY RENTALS
Above the elementary school is a 903-unit luxury residential tower clad in stainless steel. It does not contain any units for purchase. The apartments range from 500 to 1,600 square feet (150 m²), and consist of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. All units are priced at market-rate, with no low or moderate income-restricted apartments.

OTHER SPACE
The building also includes space for New York Downtown Hospital. The hospital will take up 25,000 square feet (2,300 m²), and will have public parking below ground. There will be public plazas on both the east and west sides of the building, one 11,000 square feet (1,000 m²) and the other somewhat smaller Street-level retail, totaling approximately 1,300-2,500 square feet, is included as part of the project.
Early reviews of the 8 Spruce Street tower have been favorable. In the New York Times, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff praised the building's design as a welcome addition to the skyline of New York, calling it: "the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen’s CBS building went up 46 years ago."