Midtown Manhattan's much-awaited 1,004-foot One57 residential tower hasn't topped out yet, but the first dozen or so floors have already gotten their glass façade (although some of the blue panels appear to still have their protective pastic coating). The Christian de Portzamparc-designed skyscraper, across from Carnegie Hall on 57th Street, will tower over the south end of Central Park, and will be the first major addition to the park's skyline since Robert A.M. Stern's 15 Central Park West, a limestone-clad throwback to the pre-war era, was completed in 2008. Extell Development is hoping One57's six-bedroom penthouse will fetch $110 million, which would make it the most expensive single residence ever sold in New York.

In an assessment of One57 as its glass was first going up, Robbie Whelan at the Wall Street Journal wrote that "the building's main shortcoming is that it tries to draw too much attention to itself on a stretch of Midtown street that is an anachronistic mishmash of design styles." He spoke well of the tower's place on the Midtown skyline, but lamented its street-level appearance, ending with a quote from Portzamparc: "Sometimes at street level, you are not conscious of what's happening in the sky. A tower only exists from afar in the city, and on the street, you have street life."

The following are photos taken at a few different times at the end of March and beginning of April by Flickr user 600west218, who has allowed us to use his shots.

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