1510 Broadway occupies the triangular block where Broadway, Hancock Street, and Saratoga Avenue converge. The straightforward answer to a shape like this—and the most direct way to maximize square footage—is a single volume running parallel to the widest frontage.  However, the elevated J train runs directly in front of the site, its columns coming down on the sidewalk. A building oriented toward Broadway would be a building whose residents wake up facing the train. How to design a better building?

Commercial overlays are mapped within residential neighborhoods, typically along high-traffic streets, to provide essential retail and services at the ground floor of otherwise residential buildings. Zoning requires buildings to orient their primary facade to the commercial street. But at 1510, the commercial overlay covered the entire block. That unusual condition permitted something the zoning code would have normally blocked: turn the building away from Broadway and instead orient the apartments toward the quieter residential streets.

The result is a V-shaped building with two wings pulled back along Hancock Street and Saratoga Avenue. Broadway gets an active retail base at street level—fulfilling what the commercial overlay intends—but the housing above faces away from the noise and hustle of the elevated train platform, instead overlooking a 7,000-square-foot landscaped courtyard.

The second floor is where the building’s shared life concentrates: the resident recreation room, laundry, and play areas all open directly onto the courtyard. It is the only floor where the two wings of the building connect.

Splitting the building into two independent wings—each with its own elevator core and compact scissor stair—meant each corridor serves only a handful of apartments, each ending in a window. Shorter halls, natural light: a building that yields better quality of living on every floor.