NEW YORK | 1 Manhattan West | 995 FT | 71 FLOORS

[vkristof]

Originally Posted by j-biz

^^ they've added some new machinery to the completed span that looks hoist-y, so hopefully soon. I'll post pics later today.

That IS an impressive gizmo they've built. A render from the MW website reminded me that they are laying the girders from west to east.
The fact that they haven't finished the massive steel supports in the SE corner of the pit shouldn't matter to placement of the first girder.

[j-biz]

The blue part featured prominently in the second photo is new, and there's a corresponding one on the opposite end of the completed span. There are also 20+ segments arranged in the staging area now. For all the time I've spent looking at this site, I've never once seen them bring those things in. They must do it overnight....

[vkristof]

Originally Posted by nyc7

haha same here."the light at the end of the tunnel" was always the signal for me to get out of my seat and wait by the door of the train. Either way,I agree that Manhattan is no place for exposed train tracks

Yeah. I think the battle over what do with trains in the "lower half" of Manhattan started as soon as there WERE trains in lower Manhattan.

You had the els, "smoke-less" locomotives, the West Side Cowboy, the High Line for freight, and now the overbuild of the remaining depressed tracks...

After you cover 'em up - what's next?

[vkristof]

I think they're playing with GIANT toys/erector sets :-)

Since the big blue hoist-y pulley things appeared recently, they could NOT have placed a complete girder before.

I wonder they are doing inside the now-wrapped girder?

[WestSideGuy]

Originally Posted by vkristof

I think they're playing with GIANT toys/erector sets :-)

Since the big blue hoist-y pulley things appeared recently, they could NOT have placed a complete girder before.

I wonder they are doing inside the now-wrapped girder?

Looking out the window of my apartment, I wonder why they have placed additional segments on top of the already completed span.

And inside the white tarp it appears they are blowing hot air into the span to keep it warm or to keep the people working in there warm.

[chris08876]

I'm going to miss that light before the train enters Penn Station. How many people could these towers support? I'm starting to wonder about Penn Station and the overcrowding. Especially once Hudson Yards area finishes.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I'm going to miss that light before the train enters Penn Station. How many people could these towers support? I'm starting to wonder about Penn Station and the overcrowding. Especially once Hudson Yards area finishes.

The people that come into Penn Station are going to come regardless of whether or not this gets built. The total development (of new space) at the site will be above 5 msf, but that's less than half of what Related plains over the railyards just to the west.

[vkristof]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I'm going to miss that light before the train enters Penn Station. How many people could these towers support? I'm starting to wonder about Penn Station and the overcrowding. Especially once Hudson Yards area finishes.

The West End Concourse (improvement) project at Penn is supposed to finish in 2016. The West End Concourse under the Farley PO will be significantly larger & have access through Farley to the west side of 8th Ave. That should be a significant improvement in vertical circulation for the west end of most of the platforms (don't know about the NJT platforms).

The LIRR's Eas Side Access is supposed to open in 2019. When that opens a significant amount of LIRR riders will use the ESA under GCT rather than Penn.

So Penn OVERALL will see two significant improvements in the second half of this decade.

I think the LIRR portion will continue to be a dump (NYC technical lingo) for many a year, but hey...

Edit/Update: "They" are admitting that Penn's LIRR relief (SA) will NOT open in '19:
http://www.thelirrtoday.com/2014/01/...make-2019.html

[NYguy]

^ That is correct. All discussed in further detail here, the Penn Station/Moynihan thread...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=185034

[NYguy]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle16307141/

Manhattan mega-project over rail yards picks up steam


LAURA CAMERON
Jan 13, 2014

Brookfield began working on the platform that will support its 5.4 million-square-foot, mixed-use development in late 2012. The company expects the deck to be completed by the end of 2014, and it plans to begin construction on the residential building in early 2015. The company is waiting to secure an anchor tenant before it begins the office tower.

Brookfield’s development is much smaller, but no less ambitious in its aspirations to become an integral part of the patchwork of New York neighbourhoods. Brookfield has been eyeing the opportunity since it bought the original parcel of land from the Canadian property giant Olympia & York Developments when it went bankrupt in the mid-1980s.

Philip Wharton, who oversees the project, said a combination of organic and inorganic growth is working in the area’s favour. The city catalyzed Midtown’s push west in 2005 when it rezoned the Hudson Yards area, and in 2006 when the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to extend the No. 7 subway line from the north, but equally important to transforming the area is the surging popularity of the High Line Park to the south, which leads from the Meatpacking District to the doorstep of Hudson Yards.

“We’re right at the intersection of those two trends,” said Mr. Wharton, who learned to anticipate the city’s pattern of growth while working on mixed-use developments in downtown Brooklyn and the revitalized area of Long Island City, Queens.

[WestSideGuy]

Woke up this morning to see that they moved the first span off the temporary platform and into place. I guess the information about them only doing that on Sundays was false, but it's good to see progress.

[j-biz]

Those sneaky bastards... jk


jglover1028


jglover1028

They aren't wasting any time either. One segment for the second span placed already.

[NYC4Life]

What a massive construction site this is gonna be.

[Design-mind]

Originally Posted by j-biz

Those sneaky bastards... jk

No no I totally Agree with that statement! I checked to see if there was any video footage as it would have been quite the spectacle (nothing turned up). Oh well at least we have great updates from you!

[WestSideGuy]

Originally Posted by Design-mind

No no I totally Agree with that statement! I checked to see if there was any video footage as it would have been quite the spectacle (nothing turned up). Oh well at least we have great updates from you!

As of 10:08pm they are still working, lights on the launcher, sirens blaring, laying the segments of the second span.

[sbarn]

I love the infrastructure portion of this project (bridging over the tracks) - but I really hate the architecture. I wish they would redesign these boring towers.

[Crawford]

I really hope that horrible Daily News building is torn down. I know they said they planned on recladding it and leasing it out to new tenants, but they've also talked about tearing it down and redeveloping.

I think, once the Related towers are completed, this building will be torn down, whether or not they decide to do an interim renovation. It would be crazy to have all these unused air rights right on (soon to be) one of the most important business intersections in NYC.

Originally Posted by sbarn

I love the infrastructure portion of this project (bridging over the tracks) - but I really hate the architecture. I wish they would redesign these boring towers.

Well we really only have placeholders. The specific designs will be tenant-specific.

I would like to see some renders of the residential tower, though. They haven't revealed much of anything about this one, and it may be the first one to be completed.

[j-biz]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I really hope that horrible Daily News building is torn down. I know they said they planned on recladding it and leasing it out to new tenants, but they've also talked about tearing it down and redeveloping.

They're definitely not tearing it down any time soon, unfortunately. They've been putting up a really heavy-duty sidewalk shed around the entire block in preparation for the recladding work, which I believe should start in the coming months.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by j-biz

They're definitely not tearing it down any time soon, unfortunately. They've been putting up a really heavy-duty sidewalk shed around the entire block in preparation for the recladding work, which I believe should start in the coming months.

Yeah, I know. Hopefully this site will get redeveloped once the HY towers are completed across the street.

It's going to sit on an intersection with spectacular supertalls, and here is this hideous box with massive unused air rights. I can't imagine Brookfield will just let these air rights go to waste, when huge towers are going up everywhere around this intersection.

This site contains 1.3 million square feet of unused air rights, which is just ridiculous. Something will happen here, eventually.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Crawford

This site contains 1.3 million square feet of unused air rights, which is just ridiculous. Something will happen here, eventually.

They won't be allowed to transfer those development rights to the rest of the site with the actions they just made. And with the plan for recladding, I don't think anything else will happen there for at least a decade or two.