The Museum of Modern Art is pushing forward with plans to the city to tear down the former American Folk Art Museum to make room for an expansion of its own facilities.
The major alterations application, filed with the Department of Buildings last week, calls for a $1.6 million demolition job at 45 West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues that will raze all the stories above ground. The sculptured panel facade, however, will remain.
The 40,000-square-foot expansion will connect to existing galleries and three museum-owned floors of the Jean Nouvel-designed residential tower, Torre Verre, for which real estate firm Hines recently secured roughly $1 billion to finance its long-delayed construction, as previously reported. [NYO] — Angela Hunt