“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Manhattan’s Future Jail Looks a Lot Like a Corporate HQ
1/24/2025
By Justin Davidson
Quote:
It’s a staple of comedy and complaints that an office can feel like a jail. So why not try a jail that feels like an office? The construction contractor Tutor Perini’s new video rendering shows the future Manhattan Detention Center, which will be built on the site of its predecessor near Chinatown, as a staunchly generic high-rise, its function undetectable to passers-by. It’s a facility meant to isolate people, and also to blend in.
The preliminary video, though light on detail or a sense of the building’s height or bulk, shows a tower said to be about 300 feet high at 124-125 White Street with all the usual corporate appurtenances. Glass walls line the sidewalk; a landscaped plaza is lit from the cantilevered structure above; a grid of generous vertical windows is framed in handsome steel (or maybe that’s Disney-ish terra-cotta); a blond-wood open lobby leads to a reception desk unprotected by bulletproof glass. New York has plenty of other buildings that look more obviously prisonlike than this.
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
First, I can't believe I'm just discovering this project. Secondly.... This can't seriously be an interior photo from the lobby of a detention center?..... Really?
First, I can't believe I'm just discovering this project. Secondly.... This can't seriously be an interior photo from the lobby of a detention center?..... Really?
It’s gonna be comparable to the new Brooklyn Jail…
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Credit where credit is due, both were well designed to look like anything but a jail. They look like high end condos.
I have to admit, they are pleasant looking. Not that the NIMBYs care.
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Chinatown Jail Construction Starting Soon, Will Continue for Years
The controversial result of the De Blasio-era Borough Based Jail Plan is opposed by nearly all nearby residents, and their City Council Member Christopher Marte.
Still, it promises to be the most comfortable and stylish jail Manhattan has ever seen.
Brian Berger
01 Feb 2026
Quote:
To make an omelette, the hoary apothegm goes, you have to break few eggs. And so it will be with the Chinatown Jail, whose construction will rise from what is presently an ice-crusted hole on White Street between Centre and Baxter Streets until, years later, it’s among the most beautiful high rise jails in the world—maybe the most beautiful. How many years? Well, that’s a most interesting question.
The answer, at present, is 2032, at a projected cost of around $3.9 billion. To accomplish this feat in the city where the Empire State Building was built in just over 13 1/2 months, the contractor, Tutor Perini, said it will work from 6 a.m. to midnight, Monday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. Construction will start “soon.”
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Construction begins on world's tallest jail in Manhattan
Ellen Eberhardt
24 August 2026
Quote:
A skyscraper-sized jail designed by architecture studio HOK is undergoing site preparation in New York City's Chinatown as one of the four new borough-based structures designed to replace the city's notorious Rikers Island jail complex.
The Manhattan Detention Facility will be located at 125 White Street in Chinatown, on the same site as the former Manhattan Detention Complex (The Tombs), which was demolished in 2024.
The most up-to-date renders released by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and HOK show a building that is 335 feet tall (102 metres) and roughly 13 floors, which aligns with the height of the New York County Criminal Court building next door.
It will be the tallest correctional facility in the world if built to this height, leading to its being dubbed a "jailscraper".
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
Manhattan Detention Facility Is the World’s Tallest Jail (Yes, That’s Something That Exists Now)
Srishti Mitra Srishti Mitra
Quote:
At 335 feet tall, the Manhattan Detention Facility rising at 125 White Street in Chinatown is already earning a nickname it can’t shake: the jailscraper. Designed by HOK for New York City’s Department of Design and Construction, the 1,053,671-square-foot tower will become the tallest correctional facility ever built when complete. But the more interesting story isn’t its height — it’s what HOK is attempting to do with it.
The building sits on the same footprint as the old Manhattan Detention Complex, known for generations as The Tombs, which was demolished in 2024. It is one of four borough-based jails commissioned by New York City to replace the notorious Rikers Island complex — a system that, at its peak, held up to 15,000 detainees under conditions that earned international condemnation. HOK is leading the design of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn facilities, with the Brooklyn jail already topping out at 295 feet.
Very similar to their Brooklyn design…
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
This is a category in which it's still relatively easy to build the world's tallest.
Someone build the first supertall prison, then we'll be talking.
What we need here is for someone to go undercover (meaning get arrested) to see if these new prisons, any one, are as nice as they present to be.
__________________ NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
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