Previewing the Interiors of Conversion 10 Madison Square West

New buildings are springing up, emerging from conversions, or returning to market in the Madison Square Park environs at a rapid pace. One of those, 10 Madison Square West, is already just over 75 percent sold (with a penthouse selling recently for around $36.5 million). No one's allowed in the actual building (the former International Toy Center) yet, so instead we visited the sales office and its park views one morning last week. Photos by Curbed's Will Femia in the gallery above. Most of the sales office is, like many sales offices these days, designed to look a little like a unit in the building, but there's also a separate playroom for the children of prospective buyers, complete with a custom 10 Madison Square West coloring book. As sales tactics go, sneaky, sneaky.

Designer Alan Wanzenberg, who is responsible for the building's interiors, joined us for the walkthrough of the sales office along with Elliman's Kirk Rundhaug. Wanzenberg was inspired in his work at 10 MSW partly by his own experience in the neighborhood, where he lived when he first moved to New York in the 1970s, and partly by the broader history of the area. The "architecture gave us the ability to weave through some more historically based detail," Wanzenberg explains, including cast-iron remnants and what he calls "historically-driven" lighting. The building includes 1BR through 5BR condos (with only 3BRs and 4BRs facing the park). Developer the Witkoff Group carved off 40,000 square feet from the back of the building to create a courtyard and added that square footage back in at the top of the building with a 14-unit addition.

The Witkoff Group let Wanzenberg "exercise a lot more of my background and ties to these historical periods" than he's been able to do on other projects, he says, and he emphasized "detail and tactileness" in his design and tried to create apartments that would give residents a feeling of privacy. So far it seems to be working for buyers, and Wanzenberg admits it works for him, too. "This is the one building, of all the buildings I've done, that I would live in," he says.
· Listings: 10 Madison Square West [10msw.com]
· 10 Madison Square West coverage [Curbed]
· Show Us Your Sales Office archive [Curbed]