Big boxes ruined lower Manhattan...are pencil towers ruining Midtown's skyline?

[MonkeyRonin]

That all said they do look pretty cool on the skyline. Adds yet another layer to the Manhattan landscape, and for now at least are a uniquely-NYC typology.

Watching it unfold like this, it leaves little doubt that New York is still the greatest skyline on the planet:

• Video Link

[pdxtex]

I might get flamed for this but I think Manhattan is ugly. Its huge and enormous but its busy and uneven. Also those towers are hideous. Ill take a long linear skyline over a mega mass any day.

[MAC123]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

I might get flamed for this but I think Manhattan is ugly. Its huge and enormous but its busy and uneven. Also those towers are hideous. Ill take a long linear skyline over a mega mass any day.

Ding dong your opinion is wrong. Lol

But seriously just no.

[pdxtex]

I dunno, I guess a city for me needs a focal point. The view from government island is nice but its not the same without the twin towers

[Crawford]

None of the Billionaire's Row supertalls are fully residential, BTW.

432 Park is about 1/3 office/retail, One57 has a hotel on the lower floors, Central Park Tower has a seven-floor Nordstrom department store at the base, 53W53 has the MOMA expansion at the base, and 111 W57 base is the historic Steinway Hall, which is mostly commercial space.

So even if the residential units were 100% vacant, and remotely owned by third-world Russian gangsters and Saudi despots, all the sites would be pretty active uses. But they're mostly local households, especially in finance.

[Gantz]

I think the skinny towers add to the silhouette and break the boxiness of a skyline. They act similar to a TV/observation tower in other cities' skylines and create a distinct peak and valley look.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Yes you're absolutely right. Those old towers have very different forms than the new pencil towers. But also, even if the ratio was the same the human eye tends to see something different and special about a tapered tower with a pinnacle compared to one that's skinny the whole way. A tapered tower gives a sense of aspiration like the structure reaching or climbing to the heavens from a solid base making them look powerful, elegant and sturdy at the same time. Pencil towers on the other hand look looks haphazard and frail which is striking unto itself and some people enjoy it but it absolutely isn't the same thing.

That sort of tapered archetype with an element of triangularity is so fundamental and recognizable that it's like a Platonic form. It's seen in some form in everything from church steeples to pyramids and burial mounds to soaring monuments like obelisks. In that sense it's similar to an aerodynamic or streamlined shape for horizontally oriented objects like cars, aircraft and trains which look instantly special to the human eye, appearing sleek, elegant and dynamic and quite different from blunt rectangles and cylinders. But it's impossible to recognize any of this if one is overly simplistic.

You cannot see the base of the new skinny towers anyway, they might as well be a block thick, and the upper half that you do see is indeed tapered on most of these new towers. From a skyline perspective, they function exactly like the building from the 1920s do, it is just that the plateau is raised 1000 feet higher.

[Maldive]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Watching it unfold like this, it leaves little doubt that New York is still the greatest skyline on the planet:

• Video Link

(Most of) the Manhattan skyline is astonishing (best in the world still) and I dutifully, definitely love the city itself (half a dozen wonderful visits).

But the first minute or so of that video features a lengthy pile of seriously butt ugly urban eyesores. In fact huge swaths of the riverfront obviously need a $200billion make-over.

Our little Metropolis (see what I did there ;-) is spending (and planning to spend) about $10billion on former waterfront industrial wastelands downtown ... stuff underway includes such things as a new river valley (and eventually a neighbourhood on a new island).

So NYC could come up with the needed $200billion. Call me when it's done.

[mrnyc]

pencil towers were supposed to ruin manhattan back in the 1980s too.

malls definitely ruined main street back then and online shopping has ruined storefront retail today.

so yeah the world turns -- we'll get over it.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Watching it unfold like this, it leaves little doubt that New York is still the greatest skyline on the planet

Originally Posted by Maldive

(Most of) the Manhattan skyline is astonishing (best in the world still)

Interesting how the word still is used... as if there's ever been any question... as if any city on Earth has ever even come close to being in the same discussion that the word still needs to be used.

New York is the greatest expression of the built urban form, vertically and horizontally.

Originally Posted by Maldive

But the first minute or so of that video features a lengthy pile of seriously butt ugly urban eyesores. In fact huge swaths of the riverfront obviously need a $200billion make-over.

I completely disagree. Have you ever actually been to the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson in the past 20 years?

Block upon block of high-quality pre-war, multi-story apartment buildings is hardly what I would refer to as a "lengthy pile of seriously butt ugly urban eyesores". And where are the huge swaths that need this obvious $200B () make-over?? Is Frederick Law Olmstead's design such crap that it needs to be trashed or something now after 150 years? Are all of the massive developments along the Hudson to create Hudson River Park over the past couple decades just so terrible that they should be plowed under now?

13 miles on an uninterrupted bike trail from Battery Park all the way up to the northern tip of Manhattan... again, where are these "huge swaths" of Hudson riverfront that need this massive makeover you're asserting is necessary?

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Interesting how the word still is used... as if there's ever been any question... as if any city on Earth has ever even come close to being in the same discussion that the word still needs to be used.

New York is the greatest expression of the built urban form, vertically and horizontally.

I use the word still, because there was a time where New York was the undisputed king of cities - and certainly the king of skyscrapers. It was the largest city in the world, and home to the most and the tallest and the most innovative towers.

There have been a whole bunch of upstart cities that have come up since though. New York is no longer the biggest, or the tallest, or the flashiest, or the fastest-growing. There's a lot more competition in the skyline game these days - the "world's best skyline" is no longer such an obvious answer, and I'm sure there are many who would name somewhere else for perfectly legitimate reasons. But for me at least, the history present on the skyline and the sheer quality of most buildings will keep it #1 for a long time to come.

[Crawford]

Riverside Park is one of the few Robert Moses creations that doesn't completely suck.

The park is basically a sloping platform for railroad tunnels. Prior to Moses-era Riverside Park, most of the West Side north of 60th Street was industrial, around the New York Central Railroad main line. All the rail was buried, and landfill created an esplanade, docks and recreational facilities. When you take an Amtrak train up to Albany (or, in a few years, a Metro North train northwards from Penn Station), you're traveling most of the Manhattan stretch under the park.

[edale]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I use the word still, because there was a time where New York was the undisputed king of cities - and certainly the king of skyscrapers. It was the largest city in the world, and home to the most and the tallest and the most innovative towers.

There have been a whole bunch of upstart cities that have come up since though. New York is no longer the biggest, or the tallest, or the flashiest, or the fastest-growing. There's a lot more competition in the skyline game these days - the "world's best skyline" is no longer such an obvious answer, and I'm sure there are many who would name somewhere else for perfectly legitimate reasons. But for me at least, the history present on the skyline and the sheer quality of most buildings will keep it #1 for a long time to come.

Like where? The only city I can think of that might compete would be Hong Kong.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by edale

Like where? The only city I can think of that might compete would be Hong Kong.

IMO, if we’re talking historical to present architectural tall building variety in large quantities….I would include Chicago as well.

[chris08876]

We are likely to get a saturation of thick towers over the next decade or two with the PENN district. Don't forget Hudson Yards Phase II, that's still in the pipeline. LIC is continuing to grow and let's not forget our favorite... DoBro, which is an abbreviation for downtown Brooklyn.

Midtown will be getting a lot of bulky towers. Reference Penn15 for example or 270 Park rising or even 175 Park.

Just a for fun projection/potential: With the Penn district along with others.

[chris08876]

Here is a not often seen angle. June 23rd 2022: Folks can be the judge but the skinny towers and Hudson Yards do give the city that ominous look at times.

A dystopian vibe going on with the ambient light.




IMG_1627 by Clay Hensley, on Flickr



IMG_1698 by Clay Hensley, on Flickr


IMG_1650 by Clay Hensley, on Flickr


IMG_1610 by Clay Hensley, on Flickr

[C.]

Fascinating photos

[Yuri]

New York is massive! Great pics/video in this page.

[Quixote]

GD, One Manhattan Square is just so sexy.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by Yuri

New York is massive! Great pics/video in this page.

The fun part is the dynamics certain nodes will add. For example, in the last pic in the last photo set post, note the area to the left of Jersey Cities downtown/waterfront. Journal Square will add a lot and is a smaller node that is rising with a ton in the pipeline. Further West, not seen in the pic, is Newark NJ.

Newark has their new tallest rising. The current record holder, the National Newark Building, held that record since 1931! The Halo, at 573 ft will redefine the Newark skyline... along with this below:

An 11 tower mixed-used development coming to Newark:



The Halo, Newark's new tallest rising:




IMO, the nodes within the NYC area have done the most to alter the aesthetics of the skyline. Jersey City/Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan make it look like one giant node from a far, just as Long Island City/Greenpoint/Astoria complement Midtown.

The nodes add a lot in small ways!

Originally Posted by Quixote

GD, One Manhattan Square is just so sexy.

It is.

Ah, reminds me, the LES skyline bound to rise in the future. This will add a lot to the aesthetics.