Vision | Amenities | History
The Octagon opened in 1841, an island retreat with beautiful scenery on every side. The building was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, the era's most influential architect, celebrated for his lavish Hudson River estates. Its centerpiece was a five-story octagonal rotunda of stately blue-gray stone quarried on the island. Visiting English novelist Charles Dickens praised the "remarkable" building and its "spacious and elegant staircase" — a spectacular "flying staircase" that rose in a spiral from an illuminated glass-brick floor, with Ionic columns adorning each landing.
In 1894 The Octagon was converted into a general hospital with a steamer service ferrying patients and staff across the East River. The hospital closed in 1955, and the building fell into neglect. The two wings extending from the rotunda were demolished, while a series of fires destroyed the domed roof. The Octagon joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, but its survival remained in doubt for decades.
Now the firm of Becker + Becker, renowned for historic restoration, has brought this one-of-a-kind property back to bold new life as a luxury residential community. Apartments sized from studio to 3-bedroom occupy the site of the building's two original wings. And in the center stands The Octagon itself, its signature flying staircase reinvented, its majestic cupola rebuilt. The famed rotunda now houses a lobby and fitness center, café, billiards and clubroom, gallery and conference rooms — superb amenities in one of Manhattan's most elegant and distinctive buildings.
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Metropolitan Hospital nursing staff on the "flying staircase"
A rendering of Alexander Jackson Davis' hospital design |
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