53 West 53
Eighty-two storeys of Jean Nouvel's diagonal steel beside the Museum of Modern Art. One hundred and sixty-two residences — or a hundred and forty-five, or a hundred and thirty-nine, or sixty-one, depending which of the developer's own pages you read.
The building is unambiguous and its inventory is not. Hines, the developer, states today that the tower “houses 162 high-end condominium residences” across 82 storeys and 1,050 feet, designed by Jean Nouvel with SLCE Architects and AIA Architects as architects of record, interiors by The Office of Thierry Despont, developed with Pontiac Land Group and Goldman Sachs Investment Group. Hines' own February 2020 occupancy release said 145, “ranging from one- to four-bedroom units, including full-floor homes and duplex penthouses”. Pontiac Land Group, in October 2015, said 139. And Hines' current page carries a structured Building Details field reading 61, contradicting the 162 in its own prose a few lines away.
The register publishes 162 and prints the rest. The progression from 139 before completion to 145 at occupancy is explicable; the 61 is not, and no party has restated any of them since. Four figures from two developers is not a range, and averaging them would invent a building. Nouvel's own project page, incidentally, gives the address as 15 West 53rd Street — an error on the architect's site, not a second entrance.
The museum is in the building, and the museum's account of it differs from the developer's. MoMA's own October 2019 building information describes the new David Geffen Wing “inside the 53W53 building designed by Jean Nouvel”, with galleries on the second, fourth and fifth floors “expanded westward”, “adding approximately 11,500 sf per floor” — about 34,500 square feet. Hines says 52,290 square feet of new exhibition space across three floors. MoMA credits Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler for the expansion, does not name Nouvel as its architect, does not name a developer and nowhere describes 53W53 as residential. The two houses are probably measuring different things; neither says so.
The amenity that is the point of living here is published by the sellers and not by the museum. Residents receive deeded MoMA memberships, with the possibility of hosting private events in the Sculpture Garden — stated by Hines and by Pontiac Land Group. MoMA states none of it. A benefit conveyed in a deed is a benefit the conveying party should be able to describe, and here the museum is silent on its own page.
Named in Forbes Travel Guide's inaugural VERIFIED Luxury Residences collection, 2026 — one of the seven on that list of thirteen managed by FirstService Residential, which says each property completed a training programme and a verification process assessing service culture, operations and service delivery. The designation certifies the service. It says nothing about which of the four unit counts above is right.
Who it is not for
Not for a buyer who wants one authoritative count: the developers publish four. Not for anyone who expects the museum to confirm the museum benefits — it does not mention them.
Sources
- hines.com (the developer's property page: “houses 162 high-end condominium residences”; 82 storeys and 1,050 ft; Jean Nouvel with SLCE Architects and AIA Architects; interiors by The Office of Thierry Despont; with Pontiac Land Group and Goldman Sachs Investment Group; a structured Building Details field reading 61; deeded MoMA memberships
- hines.com (the developer's occupancy release, 7 February 2020: 145 residences “ranging from one- to four-bedroom units, including full-floor homes and duplex penthouses”; closings begun; David Penick, Managing Director: “Residents and future buyers now have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to live in an architectural masterpiece”; 52,290 sq ft of new MoMA exhibition space across three floors; USD 3.5m for a one-bedroom, attributed by Hines itself to current listings — agent data in a developer release, which the register does not carry as a developer price
- pontiacland.com (the co-developer, October 2015: “each of the building's 139 residential units”; Thierry Despont as “53W53's interior architect”
- jeannouvel.com (the architect: “Tour de verre – 53W53”, 2007–2019, status Finalised; Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds additionally named as client; SLCE Architects as Interior Design Production Architect; the address given as 15 West 53rd Street, an error on the architect's own page
- moma.org (the museum's own building information, October 2019: the David Geffen Wing “inside the 53W53 building designed by Jean Nouvel”; galleries on the second, fourth and fifth floors “expanded westward”, “adding approximately 11,500 sf per floor”; Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler credited for the expansion; opening 21 October 2019; no developer named, no residential description, no mention of resident memberships
- forbestravelguide.com (the inaugural 2026 VERIFIED Luxury Residences list of thirteen, earned by “completing a comprehensive training and quality program”; no star level or numeric rating shown for any property — https://forbestravelguide.com/residences/verified-luxury-residences/residences)
Pages read are linked.
Verification
- Official source
- Checked
- Inventory
- From official source
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
- —
Booking
Private Residences records addresses; it does not broker them. Enquiries are passed to the party named in the record, and nothing on this site is an offer.
Make an enquiryClassified by The Resort Collection House · Edition 2026 · PR-D-491
In the journal
And the collection is mostly not branded residences. Two carry a hotel marque, two a fashion house, and nine carry no marque at all — while seven of the thirteen are managed by one company, FirstService Residential, through which the designation was earned. The nine new cards also produced an unusual quantity of unresolved first-party conflict, every bit of it published rather than averaged: 53 West 53's own two developers give four unit counts, including a 61 sitting on the same page as a 162; the Stoneleigh's architect says ninety-seven and its builder says seventy-five; and Continuum has no first-party anything — no project page from the developer, none from either architect, and every figure in existence belonging to one agent whose own page gives six of them.
Investment migration — the facts the rule turns on
The rule for USA: No property route — checked 24.09.2026.
| Entry price | Not established | 19.10.2026 · searched in the record's sources; not published |
The register publishes the facts and the rule; it does not say whether any purchase qualifies. Eligibility attaches to a sale, not to a building, and the register is not immigration counsel.