Aficionados of the musical West Side Story will know the New York neighborhood Lincoln Square, once called San Juan Hill, as the backdrop for the clashes between the Jets and the Sharks. But in real life, this is the part of Manhattan’s West Side that was bulldozed in the 1960s to make way for the performing-arts complex Lincoln Center.

In the decades since the neighborhood’s tenements were leveled, the area has experienced successive waves of gentrification. But the influx of money doesn’t guarantee architecture of distinction, as the most recent crop of residential towers attests. One exception is Handel Architects’ 170 Amsterdam Avenue, a 20-story, 236-unit market-rate building, which developer Equity Residential started leasing in April. The nearly block-long tower, which offers studios, one- to three-bedroom apartments, and ground-floor retail space, is supported by a deceptively delicate-looking exoskeleton in reinforced concrete. According to its designers, it is the first such structure in New York City.