1 Central Park W

One Central Park West

The 1996 completion of One Central Park West, formerly the Trump International Hotel and Tower, was a game changer for Columbus Circle. “I look at the Trump International as the anchor of luxury residential development in the Columbus Circle area,” says Jonathan Miller, chief executive of the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, who has done many appraisals in the building over the last few decades. The building dates to 1970, when it was the headquarters of Gulf and Western Industries, the manufacturing conglomerate. In the 1990s, real estate developer Donald Trump partnered with investors to give the 44-story building a makeover. Architect Philip Johnson was behind the new design, and what was once a black-and-silver facade became a glass-clad skin designed to “sparkle like a diamond,” Trump told The New York Times when the building opened. In 2019, the residential tower was renamed One Central Park West — following the removal of Trump name from several Upper West Side addresses — although the hotel still bears the former president’s name. In the 1990s, Columbus Circle was a “marginal” area, Miller says, but it’s seen a significant glow up since the 1990s with the arrival of the Deutsche Bank Center and, later, the supertall towers of Billionaires’ Row. “One Central Park West has been usurped by much more modern buildings around it, but one thing you can’t take away from it is the dead-on Central Park views from the tower. It’s like falling into the park,” Miller says, adding that, depending on where you are in the building, there are also views of Midtown or the Hudson River. “It’s spectacular.” Another building highlight: It’s home to Jean-Georges, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant from Jean-Georges Vongerichten.