Gateway Plaza

Gateway Plaza is a multi-building rental apartment complex in Battery Park City, Manhattan, at 345-395 South End Avenue, with LeFrak on record as owner and manager through Marina Towers Associates. It is a complex rather than a single building: a group of high-rise towers and lower buildings that was the first residential development completed in Battery Park City, on landfill created from the excavation of the original World Trade Center.

The complex sits between South End Avenue and the Hudson River Esplanade, just south of Brookfield Place and the World Financial Center winter garden and a short walk from the World Trade Center site. The North Cove marina, Rector Park and Wagner Park are all within a few blocks. The 1 stops at WTC Cortlandt, the E at World Trade Center and the PATH at the World Trade Center, and NY Waterway ferries leave from the Battery Park City terminal at Vesey Street.

Gateway Plaza opened in 1982 and 1983, when much of Battery Park City was still empty landfill, and for several years it was the neighborhood’s only housing. With 1,700 apartments, it remains by far the largest residential complex in Battery Park City. Like everything in the neighborhood, it stands on land leased from the Battery Park City Authority.

The complex sits directly across West Street from the World Trade Center site, and its residents were forced out for weeks after the September 11 attacks. It has since been a focus of active tenant organizing over rents and lease terms. Its appeal today is value and location: apartments here are older and plainer than in the north end’s newer towers, but they come with river and harbor views, the esplanade at the door and a short walk to the World Trade Center transit hub.