The Municipal Asphalt Plant is a former asphalt plant at York Avenue and 91st Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, housing the Asphalt Green recreation center. The asphalt plant was completed in 1944 to designs by Ely Jacques Kahn and Robert Allan Jacobs. The current structure, originally a mixing plant, reopened as the George and Annette Murphy Center in 1984. The asphalt plant, which formerly included a conveyor belt and storage facility, produced asphalt that was used to pave roads in Manhattan. The Murphy Center is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Municipal Asphalt Plant's post-modernist design was intended to fit the residential character of the surrounding neighborhood while also being industrial. The mixing plant was the first parabolic-arched building in the United States to use reinforced concrete. The exterior was designed with four arched ribs, while the walls and roof are made of cast-in-place concrete panels, which were poured around metal ribs. The conveyor belt and storage building were originally also made of reinforced concrete. The modern-day recreation center consists of the George and Annette Murphy Center, the AquaCenter swimming complex, an outdoor field, and a former fireboat pier.
An asphalt plant had existed on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, along the East River near 91st Street, since May 1914. Manhattan borough president Stanley M. Isaacs announced plans for a three-level asphalt and sanitation plant on the site in 1939, and Kahn and Jacobs's plans were announced the next year. Work on the Municipal Asphalt Plant began in 1941, and the plant was dedicated on May 24, 1944. After the plant closed in 1968, the conveyor belt and storage facility were demolished. The New York City government announced plans to redevelop the site in 1971, but neighborhood residents heavily opposed the plan, establishing Asphalt Green on the site in 1973. A restoration of the mixing plant was announced in 1979 and completed in 1984. The recreation center has undergone various upgrades over the years, and a swimming center next to the Murphy Center was constructed in the early 1990s.
Architecture The Municipal Asphalt Plant is on the east side of York Avenue, north of 91st Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Ely Jacques Kahn and Robert Allan Jacobs and built between 1941 and 1944 for Stanley M. Isaacs, the Manhattan borough president of the time. Built under the supervision of public works commissioner Walker D. Binger, the plant was one of the first projects designed by the firm of Kahn and Jacobs. Syska and Hennessy were hired as consulting engineers for the project, while Kahn and Jacobs collaborated with engineer Shamoon Nadir in the design of the building. Jacobs took credit for the plant's concrete arches, claiming that he had devised this concept while studying under Le Corbusier in France. Although the plant diverged considerably from Kahn's earlier designs, he influenced other aspects of the building, such as the use of cast-in-place concrete and prefabricated materials.
The Municipal Asphalt Plant is designed in the post-modernist style. According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), Isaacs wished for an "architectural treatment that would blend harmoniously with" both the nearby residential buildings and the neighboring East River (now FDR) Drive on the East River. The current building was originally the mixing plant, one of three structures in the asphalt plant. It was attached to a rectangular storage facility for the raw materials that trucks had brought in, as well as a conveyor belt that brought the raw materials to the mixing plant.
Form and facade The mixing plant was the first parabolic-arched building in the United States to use reinforced concrete, a cheaper alternative to steel that had been experimented with in Europe, but not used to any great effect. The arches were more efficient than the more-conventional form of a rectangle, and they further reduced stresses and the need for extraneous reinforced steel. The interior of the plant was designed first, followed by the exterior. The structure consists of four arched ribs, each measuring wide and high; the centers of the ribs are apart. These ribs support a barrel-vaulted ceiling made of concrete. Between the ribs, the sides of the plant have sash windows about one-third of the way up the walls. A sundial sculpture by Robert Adzema was installed outside the building's main entrance in 1984.
The architects initially wished to construct the arches using concrete forms, but this would have been slow and costly, and it would have required the equipment to be installed first. Instead, the construction contractors decided to use prefabricated steel ribs, each split into three sections. The walls and roof are made of cast-in-place concrete panels, which were created by pouring concrete around the ribs. This allowed the equipment to be installed after the complex was completed, and it also obviated the need for complex scaffolding. Vertical beams, placed atop horizontal girders, were used to stiffen the walls on either end of the building. Originally, the roofs of the mixing plant and the conveyor belt were supposed to be made of Monel metal, but this was postponed because of material shortages during World War II. The mixing plant's metal roof was not installed while the asphalt plant was in operation; as a result, the roof began to leak when the building was converted to a recreation center.
Features
Asphalt plant When the asphalt plant was in operation, river barges delivered sand and stone to a hopper above the conveyor belt. The conveyor belt carried materials from the East River shoreline under FDR Drive, then traveled diagonally above ground to the storage facility. The raw materials were then transferred to a secondary belt inside the storage facility. Windows were installed at "strategic points of distribution and processing" in each structure. The storage building included large containers for storing raw materials, as well as catwalks and conveyor belts on an upper level, which were illuminated by ribbon windows. Limestone dust was pumped directly to the storage building, while asphalt cement was piped to the storage building.
Afterward, dry materials and liquid asphalt cement were mixed in the mixing plant and transported to paving trucks. The mixing plant contained three sets of asphalt-mixing machines, one between each set of ribs. The space was electrically heated to prevent congelation of liquid asphalt, and it had automatic mixing controls, an automated thermostat, and equipment to collect dust, The plant was capable of creating 120 tons of asphalt concrete per hour, which could be increased to 160 tons per hour during peak times. When it opened, the plant was capable of producing 700 tons of asphalt concrete per day, compared to the 450-ton capacity of the plant that it replaced. At its peak, the plant could produce 900 tons of asphalt concrete per day, which was used for paving roads in Manhattan.
Recreation center The modern Asphalt Green complex covers , stretching between 92nd Street to the north, FDR Drive to the northeast, 90th Street to the south, and York Avenue to the west. The mixing plant was converted into the four-story George and Annette Murphy Center in the early 1980s. Originally, the building was supposed to be a three-story structure; the ground floor was to include offices, storage rooms, locker rooms, and an assembly room and theater. The second floor was to include physical-education space and an art studio, while the third story was to include a multipurpose space that could be used as an auditorium or a gymnasium. In the final plans, four levels were added to the Murphy Center, rather than three. The lowest three stories had low ceilings, while the top floor contained a gym with a suspended running track. The space included two gymnasiums, art studios, and a 91-seat theater known as the Paul Mazur Theater.
North of the Murphy Center is the AquaCenter, a three-story swimming complex designed in a similar style to the Murphy Center. The AquaCenter's main swimming pool measures across and up to deep; part of the pool's floor can be moved hydraulically to accommodate disabled guests. The main pool is covered by a curved skylight. Next to the main pool is a exercise pool whose entire floor can be moved hydraulically. There is also a pool for swimming lessons, measuring , as well as a set of bleachers that can accommodate up to 700 people. The aquatic center was also planned with offices for Asphalt Green officials, as well as a center for sports medicine and physical therapy. The top floor contains a fitness center.
West of the swimming center, on York Avenue between 91st and 92nd Streets, is the DeKovats Playground. The play area is named for Hungarian military officer Michael Kovats. A truck ramp runs across the Asphalt Green complex, connecting York Avenue with a waste transfer station operated by the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY).
History An asphalt plant had existed on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, along the East River near 91st Street, since March 1914. Described by the New-York Tribune as the "largest municipal asphalt plant in the world", it could produce enough asphalt to pave per day. The site was roughly equidistant from the northernmost and southernmost points of Manhattan, reducing the need for trucks to transport raw materials, and its waterfront location allowed barges to deliver raw materials easily. By the late 1930s, that asphalt plant had become outdated, and the neighborhood had evolved from a partly commercial to a largely residential area. Isaacs wished to develop a new asphalt plant in conjunction with construction on the East River Drive. Furthermore, DSNY operated an ash dump on a neighboring pier at 92nd Street, and fumes from the ash dump had caused land values in the surrounding area to decrease. Many of Manhattan's streets were paved in Belgian blocks at the time, but Isaacs wished to repave the borough's streets in asphalt, which was less expensive than Belgian blocks.
Use as asphalt plant
In mid-1939, Isaacs announced plans to build a three-level asphalt and sanitation plant on the East River near 90th Street. That November, Isaacs announced plans to add an enclosed sanitation facility for DSNY on the neighboring pier. The same month, Isaacs submitted a plan to the Public Works Administration (PWA), requesting funding for the DSNY facility, a tunnel connecting with the East River asphalt plant, and numerous other improvements along the East River Drive. The tunnel was completed by mid-1940; at the time, the Manhattan borough president's office had also installed pipes for asphalt concrete, as well as conveyor belts for sand and stone. That July, the borough president's office announced plans for a new asphalt plant, designed by Kahn. The plan tentatively called for a concrete structure made of several large arches, similar to a bridge arch. Isaacs predicted that the new plant would further reduce pollution. The architect Hugh Ferriss created a rendering of the proposed plant.