Manhattan Skyline to Change Dramatically This Decade
The Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel had a fantasy: to build a beautiful modern skyscraper atop the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan, the pinnacle of which would reach 1,250 feet. The Tower Verre, as Nouvel calls it, would have been slender and elegant, reaching the same height as the iconic Empire State Building. The City Council did not like that, and thus intervened, slashing 200 feet off the final proposal. Says Nouvel: “What is surprising is that Manhattan should be afraid of verticality.”
The same battle is occurring all throughout New York City. It’s a battle against a can’t-do psyche that Americans from a previous generation would consider anathema. Locals worry about the shadows. Unions jockey for position. Bureaucrats and public “planners” pine over architectural aesthetics they know nothing about. And litigators litigate. In the end, Americans abridge a Frenchman his American dream — 200 feet’s worth.
Critics have decried the “arrogance” of Nouvel’s work, the tower’s “brooding omnipresence.” How dare he build something as tall as the great Empire State Building? Who does he think he is?
Another proposed skyscraper, the even more brazen 15 Penn Plaza, would be built a few feet shorter than the Empire State Building — and just one block away! Detractors claim it would “deface” the skyline, blocking from view the Empire State Building from certain angles. The owner of the Empire State Building decried the new building himself, with a lame appeal to postcard sentimentality: “We view this as an assault on New York City and its iconography … the end of the image of New York City that billions of people hold dear.”
Give me a break. Nostalgia is one thing. Believing that the past should be better than the future — and that to aim otherwise is an affront to our predecessors — is quite another. We can appreciate the past without embalming the city, without transforming Manhattan into an “urban mausoleum.” Without, in short, becoming Paris.
Despite the politicized resistance, most New Yorkers agree. Though the destroyers of dreams have always been at odds with the doers and developers, the destroyers lack the idealism inherent in the American psyche. The developers see in the Manhattan skyline the American character. A skyscraper’s rise is a testament to human courage and continuity. When it’s said that animals are our equal, one need only point to a skyscraper and say, “Your monkey can’t do that.”
Ayn Rand captured the humanity and sentiment of the Manhattan skyline perfectly in The Fountainhead:
I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window — no, I don’t feel how small I am — but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.
She was right. Manhattan is situated picturesquely; the island is long and narrow and therefore cannot grow outward — only upward. Its grid-system of streets allows people to see the north and south horizon whenever they wish, surrounded by a forest of steel sequoias. And we are worried about a landmark being obscured from view? We should only hope that the Empire State Building is dwarfed by surrounding structures in the ensuing decades.
That’s one of Manhattan’s unique caveats: a building visible 25 miles away is invisible 3 blocks away.
The skyline is also a reminder that there are many throughout the world who, given the technological capability, would topple it in its entirety at a moment’s notice. That’s the other side of human nature. And it’s all the more reason why the builders should build: tall, short, ugly, beautiful — put it up. Amazingly, despite the recession, New York City developers are doing just that.
Build! Build dammit! It’s disgusting that this tallest buildings in the world are no longer in the United States. We invented the skyscraper (just like we invented most of the modern world). We should have the biggest, fastest, the best, and of course, the tallest. We should makethe Empire State Building look like it was made out of Lincoln Logs.
Manhattan is turning into a ghetto for skyscrapers. I lived there for the first 38 years of my life and I just can’t believe the number of skyscrapers that have already gone up or are planned to go up. I really don’t understand how the city can keep supplying these massive buildings with water, electricity, and waste removal. It may look nice from far away, but it’s quite another thing to live there with all these huge buildings and all the people who have to live and work in them. The above article also does NOT mention all of the other, smaller, skyscrapers that have already been built. There are a vast number of them, especially in the midtown area. What all of these buildings have also done is create a commuters nightmare in the city where eternal street gridlock and crowded side walks are a normal way of life. Manhattan has turned into a glorified ant colony. No wonder so many people want to avoid working or living there. Isn’t it time the city start putting limits on the size of these monsters? Sometimes, bigger is NOT always better.
Love it or leave it! Obama has not outlawed freedom of movement.
Well said, libertyship46, a true voice of reason – unlike the author of this article, who, apparently, is unfamiliar with the concept. Having said that, yours are the kinds of concerns the powers that be in Manhattan should take into account, rather than trivialities like whether or not a building is taller than the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building’s place in history is secure, nothing will ever diminish it. Is Jessie Owens any less significant because he’s longer the fastest sprinter in the world?
Part of the greatness of New York is finding a way to make more of these “monstrosities” work. How can you supply more water, energy, etc?
If New York – if ANY city – cannot supply these things effectively, they will fail regardless of the greatness of their vision.
But this is where the politicians have to step aside and let the vision take over. Providing the needs for a city that changes and grows is NOT the department of public works. Though they need to be consulted, there is ALWAYS a better way to do things. The people who supply the vision of growth can also supply the vision to fuel that growth – ALLOW THEM THE OPPORTUNITY.
I abhor those who would strangle greatness to save what exists currently. Should we tell runners that once they reach a particular goal, no others can run faster?
Should we tell athletes that records are made to NOT be broken?
Should we tell students that ideas they’ve learned are the ONLY ideas that are worth listening to?
NO! Grow – Exceed – Expand. That is excellence. That is greatness. That is vision.
And if we fail in the process, we know we failed in the attempt to do better for everyone.
Manhattan, “A perfect reflection of America’s character”??????
Ayn Rand would say so, unfortunately.
But would de Toqueville? Dvorak? Other respected assessors of America’s character?
What am I missing? How do skyscrapers make sense in the 21st Century? Why would anyone be eager to work in a building that requires valuable minutes everyday to get to its top floors? We live in an era where video conferencing is rapidly becoming ho-hum. E-mail and cell phones make it much easier to communicate with each other. Skyscrapers seem to be a technocrat’s fantasy that is being forced on the common folk. Will they even be able to lease half of the office spaces in these new buildings? I doubt it very much. These projects will likely turn out to be major financial disasters.
At one time any American child could proudly say that the Empire State Building was the world’s tallest. Even King Kong could find it!
Sadly, many Americans have lost the competitive spirit, don’t care or even know that the world’s tallest is in Dubai. (The second tallest is Taipei 101.). This allows other nations to try and outdo the West technologically. Skyscrapers symbolize a society’s desire to achieve. Onward and upward!
Dubai is an authoritarian society. The same holds true for virtually every other country that focuses on building more skyscrapers. This phenomenon seems to be premised on builders stroking the egos of national leaders who are basically dictators. We should have no interest whatsoever in erecting buildings that may not make any economic sense merely to prove our technological superiority.
The Penn Plaza building will destroy the singularity of the Empire State Building. The only other genuinely beautiful skyscraper in New York is the Chrysler building, which doesn’t stand out because it is in a dense skyscraper zone. But the Empire State building does stand out, not only because of its shape but because till now there have been no other skyscrapers within about 20 blocks of it, north or south. Go ahead and cram Manhattan with more skyscrapers but don’t claim that it will make no difference aesthetically.
The glory of the Empire State Building will be eclipsed by the New World Trade Center anyway.
New World Trade Center? Are you aware that the old one was greatly funded by tax payer dollars? It was a serious money loser for many years. Many of the World Trade Center renters were government agencies! And these buildings were built long before the advent of video conferencing—and inexpensive telephone systems. In our modern era, a 200 telephone installation is a rather ho-hum thing. The costs are relatively minor. That was not the case even 20 years ago. It was a major undertaking. Why would anyone want to move into a skyscraper? How many of today’s companies truly need to spend so much money to office their employees? Does anybody in their right mind relish the thought of wasting so much time traveling up and down elevators? Am I missing something?
Caves of Steel.
Asimov wrote about living in the ant hills of the future, where the buildings were so tall we eventually just roofed it all in and called it a day. Personally I couldn’t stand living there, but if others want to that’s their perogative.
Though I have to say how much beter is it commuting 1.5 hours each way to work because everything is stretched out as far as the eye can see like the LA area? (My area)
Yes, Telecommuting is awesome, if more companies did it. As it stands most of the time people work together in groups at physical locations.
“Though I have to say how much beter is it commuting 1.5 hours each way to work”
One will likely still travel a long way to work in one of these proposed skyscrapers. Few will ever be built in the suburbs! They are going to be erected in the large downtown areas. I can also see companies assigning a number of employees to a building close to their homes. A small office could be set up costing only a few dollars. Videoconferencing would take care of everything else. An office set up within a day. It ain’t no big deal.
As a native New Yorker, I’ve got something to say to the people worried about the “defacing” of the skyline by new builders: BS.
The biggest defacement of the skyline ever was committed on 9/11.
Let the architects and builders get to work giving us a new one.
One of the things about the Empire State Building is that it’s on the southern edge of the area of midtown Manhattan that has bedrock close to the surface and can easily support a skyscraper. From there south to the WTC area the rock is further down before returning closer to the surface in the last 3/4 miles before the Battery. That’s why the Empire State stands out so much, because the topography wasn’t suited to a sea of tall buildings in the three miles between midtown and lower Manhattan.
Which is why I also have problems with 15 Penn Plaza. Visually, what it’s going to create in that area is a pair of mismatched twin towers, especially when viewed east-to-west or west-to-east, where the only gap separating them will be 33rd Street. North-to-south view will have about a full avenue block of separation, so they won’t be paired as closely, but will still look mismatched seen from, say, Central Park or Union Square.
(And if you’re a train or subway commuter, the logistics are going to be interesting, since the building will have to be built over the Long Island Railroad and Amtrak tracks on the east side of Penn Station, and right next to the Penn Station stop on the Seventh Avenue line. The tower is going to have to be built at the same time almost all of 21 track platforms at the railroad station and the four tunnels to Queens and the four subway tracks remain in operation. The World Trade Center had to deal with similar, but less complicated, logistics back in the late 1960s, so it can be done, but it’s not as if site owner Vornado Realty is going to just be able to dig a 100-foot pit into the ground and fence off the area for 3-4 years while the tower goes up.)
Ordinarily I’d agree that we should be building. The failure to rebuild the WTC is a case in point.
But for the present, the art and practice of architecture is at a 300-year low. There’s a new tower going up in lower Manhattan that looks like it’s covered in a badly fitted wrap of aluminum foil.
Instead of building handsome facades, architects are putting up mirrors to reflect the older, handsome facades that exist. Instead of setbacks to bring light down, they are relying on the mirrored facades that have no character of their own.
Maybe if the architects would give us handsome buildings, people would be willing to have them built.
As someone who works for an architecture firm in downtown manhattan, I can assure readers that this has little to do with nostalgia, and almost everything to do with keeping real estate values artificially high for as long as possible.
On a tangent:
The Freedom Tower IS being constructed, despite the water-cooler conversations by people not in-the-know, at a rate of 1 floor per week, and is currently on floor 57