Reality Curry, 33
Project manager at Hill West Architects
Reality Curry likes to compare architecture to cooking.
“People follow recipes when you cook something, but just because you have a recipe doesn’t mean your meal is going to turn out right,” he explained. “Just because you follow the zoning and building code requirements doesn’t mean you’ll have a great building. It still takes a lot of skill putting together the pieces to get a great meal or a great building.”
Growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Curry recalls looking up at the sky in Manhattan during an elementary school field trip and thinking, “I want to do that.” He knew he wanted to design buildings, and he’s finally gotten the chance over the past year at Hill West Architects.
Most of his job involves crafting zoning studies for new apartment buildings and office-to-residential conversions of older residential properties. Although most of his current projects are confidential, Curry oversaw a number of new affordable residential developments in his previous role at Amie Gross Architects, where he worked for nearly a decade.
His notable efforts include The Delson, a seven-story, 44-unit affordable and supportive housing project in Jamaica, Queens, that has a 74-foot-tall mural crafted from red and purple tiles on its exterior. He also worked on a nine-story, 26-unit affordable co-op building at 201 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, which is replacing a cluster of abandoned walk-ups at the corner of West 22nd Street.
“My last job was project management from zoning to construction administration,” Curry explained. “After doing that for 10 years, I decided I wanted to do something more specialized with the zoning. I like figuring out how to illustrate the zoning text and turning those words into physical spaces.”
He landed his job at Amie Gross when he was still an undergraduate at the New York Institute of Technology, working on his bachelor’s in architecture. While he was working a sales job at Best Buy, one of the principals at Amie Gross was a customer, and ended up deciding to hire him.
Outside of work he enjoys, yes, cooking as well as cycling — which he says he does eight miles each way to work every day — and going to museums.
