NEW YORK | 15 Penn Plaza (Hotel Penn) | 1,050 FT / 315 M | 52 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

true though we could always do what the asian cities are doing if worst came to worst.

LOL, I have no idea what you mean.

[Obey]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

true though we could always do what the asian cities are doing if worst came to worst.

What is the 'worst' that you are talking about and what are asian cities doing exactly?

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Originally Posted by NYguy

LOL, I have no idea what you mean.

mega developments? they'd be practical vertical space if needed, i see no reason why we cant build things like them


http://s3.amazonaws.com/thornton/project_content_images/6345/pingAn_3_zoom.jpg


http://www.trendir.com/ultra-modern/shanghai-tower-1.jpg


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5kF3eQnK-Mg/TAlDfgM91kI/AAAAAAAAAlI/Y_brkeREmT8/s1600/seoul.jpg

only if NYC needed them ofcourse

[Alliance]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

mega developments? they'd be practical vertical space if needed, i see no reason why we cant build things like them

Market demand.

And when the government does get involved? We get mega-developments like WTC 2.

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

Originally Posted by Alliance

Market demand.

And when the government does get involved? We get mega-developments like WTC 2.

ya thats what im trying to say, NYguy said its theres only so far you can build vertically with a project still being practical and i was trying to say that if we ever run out of space (horizontally) we could always build mega towers like those in the works throughout Asia.

[Mr. Lion]

2000' feet i think. low if you ask me

[patriotizzy]

Originally Posted by Obey

What is the 'worst' that you are talking about and what are asian cities doing exactly?

I think he meant the projects where it's a bunch of high-rises crowded together, with the exact same design and height, but rotated.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by SkyscrapersOfNewYork

mega developments? they'd be practical vertical space if needed, i see no reason why we cant build things like them

What you're looking at is a lot of empty space at the top of those buildings. A lot of them are mixed-use anyway. If you talk about building higher to increase supply of office space, you are talking about building at least twice as high as we build now. It's just not practical in terms of office space for a variety of reasons and the economics of building it.

[NYguy]

http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20101117/the-two-block-problem

The Two-Block Problem
Two recent controversies demonstrate that in New York proximity is a very relative matter.



By Karrie Jacobs
November 17, 2010

...And where were those out-of-town politicians and caterwauling yahoos when another sacrosanct piece of New York was threatened? Our most beloved icon, the Empire State Building, is being menaced by a development a mere two blocks away. (“It stabs hearts,” as Sarah Palin might tweet.)

In late August, when nothing of significance customarily happens, New York’s City Council voted 47 to 1 to approve a developer’s plans for a 1,216-foot tower that would stand a scant two blocks west of the 1,250-foot-tall Empire State Building (which actually tops out at 1,454 feet if you count the zeppelin-mooring mast).

To rally opposition to the plan, the owners of the Empire State Building, Malkin Holdings, distributed an alarming rendering in which a chubby Pelli Clarke Pelli–designed glass tower nearly eclipsed the most enduring symbol of New York’s skyline. The Malkins argued, unsuccessfully, for a buffer zone one-third of a mile (roughly seven blocks) around their tower.

For its part, the developer of 15 Penn Plaza, Vornado, rationalized in its Environmental Impact Statement that “the skyline and the prominence of the Empire State Building would not be significantly affected because the new building would be shorter … would have a very different, modern design and a simpler tower top, and the two buildings would be approximately 1,000 feet apart, which would further diminish the perceived height of the new building in more distant views.” So in this developer’s view, two avenue-length blocks are plenty.

Well, sort of.

Two blocks would suffice were 15 Penn Plaza built to the size normally permitted by zoning. Instead, Vornado chose to leverage the fact that their site straddles two zoning districts. To build a 1,216-foot-tall tower, instead of the 580-foot tower permitted under existing rules, the developer convinced the city to upzone the neighboring lot (occupied by
a relatively short shopping mall) and allow them to transfer massive quantities of air rights from one site to the other. The proposed skyscraper crowds the Empire State Building in part because Vornado got permission to flaunt the setback regulations that would normally have forced the tower to taper. No one would be calling for a buffer zone if the developers hadn’t felt compelled to game the system.

Why did the same City Council that ordered Jean Nouvel to lop 200 feet off his West 53rd Street tower agree to supersize 15 Penn Plaza? Perhaps because Vornado is one of two developers that are supposed to be helping finance the transformation of the shabby Penn Station into the new Moynihan Station. Air rights and upzoning were among the incentives for that deal. The Penn Plaza project also fits in with the Bloomberg administration’s plan to transform the far West Side of Manhattan into a new central business district with a lot of extra-tall towers jamming the skyline.

[thelanetrain17]

i think this battle is just a waste of time. Seriously the Empire State Building is 200 feet taller than 15 penn (if you include the spire) and the ESB just looks totally awkward sitting there all alone. Build more like 15 penn around West and East side just so ESB will have some company. Who hates NIMBYs, cuz i certainly do haha. And have they found some tenants for this building yet so it can start to rise

[Lecom]

Originally Posted by NYguy

http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20101117/the-two-block-problem

The Two-Block Problem
Two recent controversies demonstrate that in New York proximity is a very relative matter.



By Karrie Jacobs
November 17, 2010

The author is so opinionated, biased and uninformed that it hurts to read that article. Seriously, just

[patriotizzy]

Originally Posted by Lecom

The author is so opinionated, biased and uninformed that it hurts to read that article. Seriously, just

Yeah, I didn't even care to read. The title itself gave away a hint of the extreme bias...

[Alliance]

Something that I think is interesting is that this tower would be the most significant building built between midtown and downtown...ever. ESB was always the southern border. Sure Metropolitan Life and New York Life exist and there are a spattering of new buildings like Saya that are tall, but certainly not very big.

Thoughts on if this is a southern shift or really just filling out the bottom edge of Midtown?

[Lecom]

It's Midtown's new frontier, and unlike its western frontier, Midtown South has some of the best public transportation connections in the entire city.

[Matthew]

I'm surprised the distance from the Empire State Building is the most talked about issue with this building. It's almost as if no one noticed the famous Hotel Pennsylvania (from Glenn Miller's song) is facing demolition? I know there was an effort to save it, but these efforts fail without strong support. I'm surprised it's not landmarked. If something must replace this hotel, I love this proposal. While I love this proposal and want to see it built, I will admit the loss of this hotel is sad though.

• Video Link

I could share some of the Hotel Pennsylvania's blueprints, elevation drawings and some construction photos. I have to look for them though. Its design and opening was a big deal in the late 1910s.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Alliance

Thoughts on if this is a southern shift or really just filling out the bottom edge of Midtown?

The space between the Empire State and the "pack" (roughly 34th to 40th St) could use some development, though some of those blocks are protected. It would have been interesting though, to see how the Manhattan skyline would look today had the MetLife been built to its original height. This would have put the tallest further south than the ESB currently does. (There's a thread in "never builts" I believe)

For four years, starting in 1909, Met Life had the tallest building in the world – their tower on 24th Street – until the 57 story, 792 ft. Woolworth Building displaced it. The Woolworth Building would hold that title for 17 years, through World War I and the 1920s, until a whole new crop of even higher buildings popped up towards the end of that decade. In a matter of months (in 1930-31) the title of tallest building would be transferred from the Woolworth Building to 40 Wall Street to the Chrysler Building to the Empire State (which at 1,250 ft. ended all discussion for 40 years). It was the intention of Met Life to get in on the competition. The original plan for their Met Life North Building called for a skyscraper of 100 stories, topping out at around 1,300 ft. and stealing back the title of tallest building in the world.

It never happened. Most of the skyscrapers built of this generation were started during the boom of the Roaring Twenties and finished during the first few years of the Great Depression, and the effects were certainly felt. 40 Wall Street could only manage to fill half its office space up until the end of World War II, and only started turning a profit in the 1950s. The same went for the Empire State Building, known by its nickname, the “Empty State Building,” all through the 1930s. The ambitions of the Met Life North Building were hit particularly hard. In 1933 Met Life decided to halt construction entirely, leaving the skyscraper just 29 stories tall. Work continued in two phases after that, with the building’s current form being reached in 1950, although no further height was ever added. It stands now as a squat monument to thwarted plans.

Because the intention was to reach so high the base of the building had to be gigantic. It takes up the entire block between 24th and 25th Street, fronting Madison Avenue, and even with its severely shortened height it was one of the largest office buildings in the world at the time of its completion, with almost 2 million square feet of space. There’s evidence throughout of its abandoned expectations, including the three-story round arches that mark each corner and look completely outsize for a building of its stature. Inside it holds the 30 elevators that would have been needed to serve the original 100 story plan, creating a boon for current tenants who find they rarely have the need to wait.

http://www.takethehandle.com/?p=15149

[Lecom]

Originally Posted by NYguy

The space between the Empire State and the "pack" (roughly 34th to 40th St) could use some development, though some of those blocks are protected. It would have been interesting though, to see how the Manhattan skyline would look today had the MetLife been built to its original height. This would have put the tallest further south than the ESB currently does. (There's a thread in "never builts" I believe)




http://www.takethehandle.com/?p=15149

We should be glad that at least the lower 30 stories of this thing were fully fleshed out. The tower was an awkward, 1/4 sized slab for a while, and for another while it existed as a slightly less awkward 1/2 block slab.

But I do get your point - it is illogical to say that competing supertalls do not belong in the area, as competing supertalls of equal or greater height were already in progress during the ESB's time, and were only halted due to the Depression economy.

[scalziand]

^That's slightly incorrect; it existed as 1/2 and then 3/4.

Link to thread with relevant post.

Anyway, I love how much soar just the base has.

[NYguy]

I wish they could get around to reopening the Gimbels tunnel sooner, but until they do, here's a piece on the old days...


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/ope...he_gimbels_tunnel_3SN7c8HSVMMdICpXMVJFiN
Remembering the Gimbels tunnel




By STEVE CUOZZO
November 27, 2010

To revisit the long-closed Gimbels Corridor is to relive New York’s past-tense future. In the early 1970s, conditions in the pedestrian tunnel presaged the bleeding city of the 1980s and early ’90s. Filthy, fetid and unpoliced, it entertained rampant lawlessness, squalor and decay years before they fully possessed the streets.

Before it was walled up, the passageway — parallel to the basements of Gimbels department store and the Hotel Pennsylvania beneath West 32nd Street — linked the Herald Square subway station with the one at Seventh Avenue/Penn Station. Vornado Realty Trust plans to reopen it one day as part of a new office tower project.

Prior to a recent “tour,” I hadn’t set foot in it since 1974 or ’75.

Back then, the interminable, 800-foot stroll, as long as four city blocks, was too much even for my youthful spirit of adventure. Street weirdos and sex hawkers on Eighth Avenue were amusing; knife-wielding hustlers, legless beggars and the howling insane in a dimly lit corridor a mere nine feet wide for much of its length were not. The mad harmonica player who stalked me end to end was the last straw.

Once you were inside, there was no way out except to reach the other end. In the midst of teeming Midtown, bare-bulb fixtures like those in mines marked a path through a Calcutta-like sprawl of diseased, predatory humanity.

The corridor seemed to exist beyond the reach of any authority. Vornado says it’s owned by the MTA. The MTA says it’s owned by Amtrak, which told me it thinks it owns a portion of it. Who was in charge 35 years ago is an even deeper mystery.

Could today’s looming service cuts and upticking crime rate similarly preview much worse to come? We should pray not, but the prospect, however remote, might please certain factions of the intelligentsia wistful for the misery of the past.

A New York Times op-ed column last Tuesday, which celebrated with tongue in cheek the “miracle” of today’s miserable Penn Station, stated, “People love to say they miss the ragged, gritty, vivid aura of New York in the ’70s.” Since the Gimbels tunnel fed into Penn Station, we may presume it’s among the joys some yearn to recapture.

Others miss subway graffiti, which proclaimed the criminal underclass’s dominion over the trains. James Wolcott expressed in Vanity Fair last year a nuanced but no less unfathomable preference for the “rubble” of the bad old days. Jimmy Breslin said he preferred hooker-filled Times Square to today’s “Disneyfied” version.

“30 Rock” star Tracy Morgan told TimeOut NY last week that the city of the ’70s was “more relaxed.” While he allows it was “more dangerous in the ’80s,” he says the city’s “soul” has been lost, and it seems to him, since 9/11, “like a police state.”

Out of their minds, every one.

The “soul” of Morgan’s lamented lost city reposed in the Gimbels tunnel, which foresaw the dysfunction and pathologies that would rule the city to come. Soon after I last used it, the municipality went nearly broke; the Bronx burned; infrastructure and transit fell to ruin after a generation of “deferred maintenance;” and murders swelled from 800 annually to 2,262 by 1990. And the tunnel? A rape epidemic finally prompted somebody to seal the ends shut in the early 1980s.

Vornado hopes to modernize and widen the passage as part of improvements it pledged in exchange for city approvals to replace the hotel with an office tower. A fine and overdue project, it will finally banish the tunnel’s stubborn ghosts.

Or maybe not. It was skin-crawlingly creepy on my recent walk-through — not only because of grimy signs for “Gimbel Brothers” or spooky remnants of a couple of fast-food joints.

Picking through vermin traps and rubble, we reached the point near the Sixth Avenue end where the harmonica man rose out of the dark as if in a bad dream. Toothless, oozing blood and worse, he blew his mangled tune in my face. The faster I walked, the faster his pursuit. How far to Seventh Avenue?

Those who romanticize our dark age need a tour, too. The harmonica man’s song is still down there for those who care to listen. Heed the echo, and tremble.

[OneWorldTradeCenter]

I really happen this is going to happen at 1,216ft