The Octagon a new building on Roosevelt Island, has a lot of features I was unaware off. Blending Centuries Roosevelt Island Development Merges New and Old Towers by Natalie Keith A new 500,000-sq.-ft. apartment complex on New York City's Roosevelt Island is wrapping various construction specialties into a development that will preserve an unusual slice of the city's history. The new $170 million Octagon development on the East River isle blends the renovation of an historic structure with two new 14-story apartment towers. "The most challenging aspect of the project was the restoration of the Octagon Tower," said Bruce Becker, president of Becker + Becker Associates of Fairfield, Conn., the project's architect and developer. The renovation of the five-story Octagon Tower brings back an 1841 building designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. It first served as entry and administrative space for the New York Lunatic and Pauper Society and later as Metropolitan Hospital