Retrofitting Josep Lluís Sert’s Eastwood
Transforming Main Street
All photographs by John Hill/World-Architects
The textured masonry facades of Josep Lluís Sert’s nearly 50-year-old Eastwood apartment buildings—now The Landings—on Roosevelt Island are being covered with insulation to meet New York City’s recently implemented energy-efficiency requirements. World-Architects visited to see portions of the original facades before work commences on transforming the buildings' Main Street elevations.
Completed in 1976, Eastwood comprised 1,003 apartments in 11 interconnected buildings arranged around three large courtyards on the east, Queens-facing side of Roosevelt Island, a slender, 2-mile-long island in the middle of the East River. The mixed-income apartment buildings were part of a larger development of the island by the New York City Urban Design Corporation master-planned by Philip Johnson and John Burgee. Designed by Sert, Jackson Associates, Eastwood's stepped profile—from six stories along the promenade on the river's edge to 22-story sections along the island's central Main Street spine—departed from the master plan and became one of its defining characteristics. Also making Eastwood stand out from the other buildings on Roosevelt Island were the bands of glass expressing the “skip stop” stacking, with circulation corridors on every three floors (to ensure every unit had two exposures), and the ribbed concrete panels covering the facades.
In the decades since their completion, residents of the rental apartments have come and gone, the buildings' ownership has changed hands, and the name was changed from Eastwood to Roosevelt Landings. Most recently, in 2019, L+M Fund Management purchased the buildings that it now calls The Landings. That same year, New York City enacted Local Law 97, an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all new and existing buildings over 25,000 square feet. Given the sizable footprint of The Landings, L+M needed to comply and opted to overclad the precast board-formed striated concrete panels with EIFS. While this approach will make the buildings considerably more energy efficient, it will also sap them of their distinctive facades, replacing the fine-grain texture of the original for nearly seamless off-white and gray exterior skins. World-Architects recently learned that ongoing retrofit work would be starting on Main Street soon, wrapping up by October 2025, so we grabbed a camera and took the ferry to Roosevelt Island, snapping the below photos and adding some captions.
The approach from the north reveals much of the original character of The Landings, née Eastwood.
Getting closer, the overcladding work is apparent, moving from the low-scale portions on the east to the taller portions toward Main Street on the west.
A finished section facing the East River shows the near-seamless nature of the EIFS surfaces.
This view looking north accentuates the stepping of the buildings but also how the EIFS installation is creeping upward and westward.
The EIFS installation is about halfway across the southernmost building, 510 Main Street.
A closer view of the eastern end of 510 Main Street.
Walking north along the riverfront promenade: the cherry blossoms are more captivating than the new facades.
A sign mounted to one of the concrete columns describes the layout of the buildings, courtyards, and the various facilities (playroom, senior center, library, amphitheater) for residents.
The difference between old and new is grasped through the trees in one of the courtyards.
The layered work of adding the EIFS system is visible above the tree line.
Moving north to another courtyard, the details of the original exterior are clear—not only the striated masonry but the red verticals punctuating the circulation floors.
With the installation of the yellow waterproofing and gray insulation board, the original masonry tiles are made invisible.
Finally reaching Main Street: The Landings looks much as it did when it was completed nearly 50 years ago as Eastwood, down to the glass atrium.
The west edge of The Landings along Main Street is built over the sidewalk, where a continuous 1,000-foot-long arcade is broken up by two glass atriums. (Note that one reason such an arcade can be done here and not in other parts of NYC is Roosevelt Island's pneumatic trash system, which means no trash bags or bins on the sidewalks.)
Not wanting Main Street to be a canyon, Sert designed the north-south buildings at 7 and 11 stories, much lower than the 22-story vertical cores at the western end of east-west buildings.
A closer view from the plaza across the street reveals that the other glass atrium has been removed—both are being replaced by L+M with canvas awnings.
Although calling the facades designed by Sert things of beauty might be a stretch, they have nice touches, particularly the vertical striations of the masonry tile, which make the buildings look like example of brutalist architecture designed by Paul Rudolph and others.
The tiles—soon to give way to smooth EIFS surfaces—give a coarse texture to the Main Street elevations.
Ironically, work on retrofitting The Landings will be done in time for next year's 50th Anniversary of Eastwood—I'm not aware of any planned celebrations.
