In a city that can treat its courtyards like walled-off terrariums — things to behold but not to touch — 443 Greenwich Street is taking a different approach and creating a space to be enjoyed like a park.
The 4,000-square-foot doughnut hole in the middle of the new 53-unit condominium, a conversion of a nearly full-block former factory in TriBeCa, will be lined with hundreds of windows and shutters with a 19th-century aesthetic and will have seats shaded by sassafras trees.
“It really is a Gramercy Park kind of thing, but downtown, without having to have keys,” said Nathan Berman, the principal of Metro Loft Management, which is the developer of the project. Metro Loft has a long history of converting office buildings to rentals in the financial district, but this conversion will be its first condo.
The hundreds of windows, many of them arched, were created to deliver light and fresh air to workers relegated to the back reaches of the red-brick 1880s building, which was variously used by bookbinding, drug, glass, silver, toy and steel-wool companies. Mr. Berman said the windows were in pretty bad shape by the time he bought the property in 2012.
