Gehry Gets Topped Out in Lower Manhattan

Developer Bruce Ratner (left) took some time away Thursday from fretting over his planned Atlantic Yards project to host a topping out soirée for his Frank Gehry-designed Beekman apartment tower, capping the vertical rise of what is to be the tallest residential building in the city.

Filling half of Beekman Street at the Lower Manhattan tower's base, Mr. Ratner and a host of union officials and others involved in the project all lauded the development--started pre-Lehman crash, when filling a luxury tower at high rates seemed a bit more realistic--before hoisting a concrete bucket up 867 feet to the building's top.

(In the meantime, the Atlantic Yards project was hit with another lawsuit.)

We snapped some photos and briefly caught up with Mr. Gehry (right) to chat about the tower.

-Eliot Brown