Again, it all goes back to the same premise:
We don't *need * a world's tallest. It just so turns out that historically in this country, every single skyscraper graced with the title "World's Tallest" was so because practical circumstances dictated it. ESB was not built to its scale to appease a faux-patriotic "wel'll get over this doggone worldwide Depression" mantra.
Within the past decade at the very least, more or less every Asian putative World's Tallest entry was built to essentially pound chest and enter the proverbial pissing contest.
I won't get to far afield save to say this: If anyone can tell me the highrise vacancy rate for cities like Shanghai and Dubai, I'd *really* like to know--provided my suspicions are on target---why the previously cited SWFC and Burj Khalifa even exist otherwise.

This bubba exists to serve as mothership to a huge company and serve however many of NYC's 8 million+ people seek their patronage. Name any city undergoing a construction boom in this country, Canada.....and even European metros like Moscow, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Vienna, Rotterdam etc. You'll see that it's all demand based, be it office, business, residential, government, or what have you.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled on-topic roundtable.

I don't think a major city will ever have a world's tallest again. The really super-duper talls (whatever they call these things) are being proposed in smaller cities looking for publicity. You don't see these proposals anymore in places like Shanghai, or even Dubai (and I wouldn't call Dubai a major world city), but more so Jeddah, Suzhou, and the like.

Exactly that's the thing, you don't need the worlds tallest these days to be a top skyscraper city.

If that 1km thing goes up in Jeddah even Shanghai's tallest won't look that big in comparison, and Shanghai is 15 times the skyscraper city (or lack thereof) that Jeddah is, so it doesn't really matter. I don't want some huge ass thing all by itself. NYC will be an Island of supertalls, what more can anyone ask for?

What's amazing about New York (apart from building on demand) ist that both this tower (a 1600 footer) and 432 Park Avenue (a 1400 footer) are residential towers. And let's not forget about all the other ones which are popping up all over the place.

OK people. Somehow this has gone way off course. This isn't a discussion on world's tallest buildings.

True, I just find it ridiculous that someone can be upset about a ~1600 foot tower in NYC because it's not tall enough.

Looks like they'll be going down maybe 80 ft or so, and then foundation work will begin. I suppose the 20 months is what it will take to get up to street level.


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/150578685/original.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/150578686/original.jpg

80 feet is WTC-like deep. That's pretty far down.

The last time we had anything that deep that I recall was OBP, but even that was like 50 or so feet.

Yeah, it would be nice if we had a webcam to watch every move.

80 feet is very deep, we could be dealing with a 1600+ footer here easily

I really want to see the design now. It would either make or break this building, regardless of height, but I'm sure we're in for something special.

One can only imagine what kind of heights we'll be seeing here with a foundation the equivalent of 8 levels.

What are the odds that the design has been selected, but not made public yet? :???:

Of course its been selected. They have been fine tuning it for a year or more. It isnt a public project and isnt being bid to multiple architects. Extell probably has a model of One57 and 225 W 57th sitting in their offices right now.

I don't think there's ever been more anticipation for a rendering, this building's excitement trumps every building I can think of since I started following this site ( 432 park, One57 or even Tower verre). I think the anticipation for this building even rivals the WTC back in the early 2000s.

Looks like demo has begun on the last remaining building on the site. By the looks of it, maybe one or two floors have been removed:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3821/8...8cc10f05_o.jpg

Excavators remain on site:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7381/8...811cfd41_o.jpg

With Adrian Smith on board its hard to imagine the design dissapointing! It's not like this is some no-name or little known architect here. He's bigger even than David Childs from SOM.

i agree anticipation is killing me lol can't wait to see the final design and height..i think 1600 ft would be the minimum with 1700 the max. unless it has like a spire or something. I think its going to be a beauty :D

Could be. I think when the design is revealed, there will probably be more of a splash about the store. It was Nordstrom that decided to get Adrian Smith to design the tower, and they will own their portion of it. But One57 was under construction before we even had a clue of its design. Gehry's Beekman downtown was also under construction before we got the design. So, as much as I would like to see this design now, it wouldn't surprise me if it took a while before we saw anything.

Did a quick search on Arian Smith, and Onn is right, we're in for something great. This guys designed the Burj Khalifa and the Jin Mao. I cant wait for more information and renderings to trickle out.