The building was intended as a happy place: literally.
Designed by legendary BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, The Smile brings its bold and bright design to Harlem. The unique facade hugs 126th Street, gently curving to resemble the welcoming grin of a smile. Apartments pop like pockets of joy across the T-shape exterior, creating a diverse mix of loft-style homes each as individual as the residents within.
There are Perks:
The 20,000 square feet of amenities will have you grinning ear to ear, including the Rooftop Swim Club with skyline views and outdoor movie theater, state-of-the-art Fitness Club, Smile Spa with dry sauna and steam room, Co-Working Studio, Demonstration Kitchen, and Screening Room. 24-hour Attended Lobby, and more. Experience life well rounded.
And then there are homes itself.
A studio of less than 500sf will cost you ~ $3K monthly, 1-bedroom of 750sf – close to $3.7K, etc. Not bad, per Manhattan standards – especially if considered they come furnished, and not with just anything – but a Bumblebee “smart” furnishings. Carefully neutral, Scandinavian-white+Asian-beige wood’ finish scheme leaves me a bit disappointed, but is understandable: The Smile is a rental building, after all, intended to appeal to all. Or, rather, to avoid offending various sensibilities.
Noticed something inconspicuous, but important in Architect’s aesthetic? Exposed concrete ceilings and pillars, stressed in all marketing spiels as a feature.
Then “something went wrong”.
A resident on the 8th floor has been arrested for hate crime.
Things got so bad at 158th East 126th Street, residents called the 8th floor the “floor of terror,” sources said.That’s where Marlon Carr, 47, lived and was […] barricading himself inside his apartment following a racist assault on his neighbor, a 39-year-old Asian man, according to law enforcement sources. […]“He started to yell really racist things — Wuhan b–ch, suck my d–k. It was offensive. I’m Chinese, [there are] a lot of people in the building who are Chinese,” she said. “I emailed the building manager and I told the front desk about this. They were trying to figure out what to do. They can’t do anything because of the law. But now that he physically attacked someone, they arrested him.”
How could that be? In this happy-ain’t-we-lucky!-“expensive”-building*? What made him snap, you ask?
Carr had always been hostile towards his neighbors, but turned especially vitriolic after one of them called the police, after hearing his dog cry for help from his apartment.
Did you get it? They called the cops because they heard the dog. And why they heard the dog? I’ll tell you: because exposed concrete doesn’t absorb, but amplify the sound! An architectural vanity, sacrificing acoustics for aesthetics caused someone being arrested! A “Manhattan man”, as they euphemistically call it in the press. A man victimized by design…
It’s the Architect’s fault! ©
So, what happens now?
A neighbor says:“I’m glad he was arrested. But he’ll be out in the street soon enough. The new DA isn’t trying to enforce anything.”
He was due to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Saturday.
I’m not holding my breath.
PS
Notice the price tag (1/3 of the market) and the table with income limits.