Waterside Plaza is a residential and business complex located between the FDR Drive and the East River from 25th to 30th streets in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan, New York City.

The housing development received the Construction Achievement Project of the Year Award from the Metropolitan Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1974.

The complex is made up of four residential towers as well as a row of duplex townhouses, clad in brown brickwork, that encompass a large plaza overlooking the East River.

While having lunch with architect Lewis Davis at the end of the parking garage at the Skyport Marina, a project that Ravitch constructed at the foot of 23rd Street that opened the following year, the two discussed a newspaper article in which United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson complained about a lack of housing for staff working at the UN headquarters; Ravitch suggested solving the problem by building housing along the waterfront to the north of the marina.

[7][8][9] Ravitch approached James Felt, the head of the New York City Planning Commission, in the spring of 1961 to discuss his idea but he was told, "Don't waste your time."

[1][8][11] The matter to change the designation of the river along the Manhattan shoreline had been brought before Congress at the request of Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. by Emanuel Celler, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 10th congressional district.

Initially estimated at a cost of $42 million, the project sponsored by the HRH Construction Company and designed by Davis, Brody & Associates was to contain a total of 1,450 apartments, some of which would be reserved for United Nations staff.

The planned subsidies included the developer leasing the land from the city at no cost and only having to pay half of the residential real estate taxes.

Meanwhile, supporters of Waterside argued that the subsidies were needed in order for the project to move forward, and that it was located on a site that currently produced no revenue to the city.

[20] The development of Waterside was originally intended to be privately funded, but the project got stalled because its sponsors had difficulties in obtaining financing due to the effects of inflation and a tightened market for loans with high interest rates.

[22] The apartment buildings at Waterside were constructed on top of a 6-acre (2.4 ha) platform supported by over 2,000 piles that were sunk into the East River beginning in January 1971.

[1] The platform was built next to another deck that had been previously constructed for the planned site of the United Nations International School with a $1.1-million grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

At the event, Mayor Lindsay presented architect Lewis Davis and developer Richard Ravitch with the city's 75th Anniversary Golden Jubilee Medal in recognition of their contributions.

[37] There were plans to build additional above-water apartments, offices, and a hotel to the south of the site in the 1980s, but environmental concerns and community opposition doomed the project and led to the development of Stuyvesant Cove Park.

[44] Ravitch ended up brokering a deal with the city to obtain property tax breaks in exchange for agreeing to reduce the proposed annual rent increases for tenants and keep them below market levels.

[46] The actions came as a result of prior negotiations that Ravitch had with the city to extend Waterside's ground lease in order to refinance the mortgage on the property.

[48] The complex is made up of four residential towers as well as a row of duplex townhouses, clad in brown brickwork, that encompass a two-acre (0.81 ha) plaza overlooking the East River.

An elevated promenade, intended to be primarily used by tenants, runs alongside the townhouses' private terraces and provides a raised connection between the four towers and health club.

Prior to changes to the area roadway network associated with the development of Stuyvesant Cove Park in the early 2000s, the only point of vehicular egress from the complex had been via the northbound service road to 34th Street.

The existing footbridge is planned to be replaced with an ADA compliant pedestrian overpass as part of the development of a health and life sciences hub on the west side of the FDR Drive.

[57] In his 1979 book The City Observed, New York, a Guide to the Architecture of Manhattan, Goldberger described the footbridge across the FDR Drive as "especially irritating, since it feels like a drawbridge over a moat" and called the central plaza as having "a desperate need for landscaping" since it "is psychologically cold on even the warmest summer's day."

He compared the high-rise apartment buildings to the towers of San Gimignano, with the East River and FDR Drive taking the place of the walls that protected the Italian medieval hill town.

[63][64] Waterside Plaza's sister development is the River Park Towers, a residential housing complex in the Bronx that was also designed by Davis, Brody & Associates.