disagree, i'm in favor of anything that helps break up the midtown plateau.

one of my favorite aspects of a good skyline is a lot of height variability, and these new manhattan pencil towers are making the midtown skyline a lot more "pointy" than it used to be.

i think it's a welcome change.

the sky is the limit!

I agree. These towers are bringing back the "city of spires" aesthetic. It hasn't been seen since the '50s.

I dont mind height and variability (within reason). I think I just prefer if the tallest focal points were part of that feeling of sturdiness and solid mass. Billionaires row looks like little weeds sprouting out of the garden, while Sears Tower is an oak tree that stands the test of time.

Small footprints and narrow lots are great (not that these buildings really do much for street level vitality anyway...), but when extruded to 400m the proportions just look goofy.

And I'll echo the dystopian vibe of the billionaires looming over the city:


https://newyorkyimby.com/wp-content/...on-777x518.jpg

But wasn't that always the case? Isn't that just what New York is?

https://images.adsttc.com/media/imag...ch_26_1936.jpg

Back in the day, there were those who found it absurd to see a replica of the Halicarnassus Mausoleum sitting on top of a giant tower built by a dime-store mogul (or whatever).

it is definitely possible to over-unique it.. look at Dubai

yep. my feelings exactly.

the difference being that the oligarchs are now casting their disdainful gaze down upon the plebes from their condo towers instead of their office towers.

but that's not really a big difference at all. it's all money and ego, a story as old as time. so what if a few of the minor details have changed?

This is a discussion purely on skyline aesthetics, and so I have to take off my urbanist's hat as a result of the dichotomy that can occur between skylines and street-level urban experience. In that perspective, although the current Billionaire's Row towers that are form-fitted into the existing streetscape are preferable to razing a block for such a development, it's unrelated to the aesthetic from afar. If I were talking about my ideal urban planning framework there probably wouldn't be any supertalls, and certainly no mega-block developments or even floorplates over 20,000 SF. As an observer of a skyline from kilometers away however, substantial towers like Metlife, Worldwide plaza, or even Solow do much more for me than pure height in the form of a Steinway.

That being said, I would also debate the point that a small footprint instantly makes a building a better contributor to the urban fabric. A combination of small footprints can be the secret sauce when they create variability in street frontages and uses. I think most of us picture perhaps a grocery store next to a mom-and-pop Italian restaurant, next to an independent tailor who's been there for 60 years. A small lot with frontage dedicated entirely for private access to $5 million+ condos doesn't invoke the same feeling, but maybe that's just me. This argument also seems based on the assumption that if we didn't have these pencil towers, there would be giant podium style developments instead. Does it have to be one or the other?

Well those office towers also housed numerous people making a wage that let them live in one of the greatest cities in the world. To me the higher office floors with a view don't seem quite as inaccessible for 99% of population as does a $50 million penthouse.

Could be just me again, but I actually prefer a slightly more modern version of the Downtown without such pronounced drop-offs. I get more excited with the crushing feeling of a skyscraper canyon than looking up at a lone tower. Maybe not what New York is though, and 1980-2010 was more an anomaly.

yeah, i won't be getting on board that train. i much prefer a "spikey" skyline over a plateau style one.





these new pencil towers proliferating across midtown are not doing a damn thing to detract from manhattan's unparalleled street canyons.

this isn't an either/or situation.

Wasn't implying they did. It was more that if it was a hypothetical choice between a downtown with nice spikes, but large gaps inbetween, or a consistent canyon with smaller (but definitely still need some) height deviations I would probably choose the latter.

^ ok, whatever floats your boat.

i was just pointing out that you can have your cake and eat it too.

you can have manhattan!!! :cheers:

That's why Manahattan never gets old. Whether you like the current or new aesthetic, it will continually evolve. Maybe in 50 years Billionaire's row will be at tabletop height and the next generation will be arguing whether the 600m towers are too tall and thin!

These super expensive condos are having a lot of trouble. That's actually an understatement. Billionaire's Row is one of the worst performing areas for condo sales in the entire city of New York. They are struggling in what may be the best environment for the very high net worth people that we've seen since before the Great Depression. If there is a recession soon, we might see some of these super high-end condo developers go bankrupt as a result.

I suspect a lot of the fundamentals behind developers catering to the ultra high-end market in Manhattan was based on shady money from overseas. After the 2016 election, the Obama admin slapped a bunch of sanctions on Russian oligarchs that effectively froze them out of the U.S. financial system, and Russian oligarchs were also a key demo for ultra high-end Manhattan real estate. There was also a lot of increased scrutiny on shady money filtering in from other parts of the world as well. This is probably a big reason why the current president, himself a Manhattan real estate developer, is so eager to roll back Obama era Russian sanctions.

for sure, miami has the mass, it just needs to get a lot more "spikey" before it truly enters the skyline big leagues of north america (NYC, chicago , and toronto).

and it has like a dozen supertall proposals on the drawing boards, but so...... much...... waiting......

when?

WHEN?

No, those are office buildings not mostly unoccupied monuments to wealth inequality and everything wrong with capitalism in the US. It is jarring, but there are a few gems among the uglies like that shop tower.

Yeah, there are, theoretically, other options. Practically, probably no. Most U.S. highrises are towers on podiums. NYC isn't really a podium town because parking is (generally speaking) forbidden and there are no backsides of buildings (no alleys and buildings are built cheek-by-jowl).

In NYC, you're gonna get a lot-filling building. Building size is strictly a function of floor area ratio. You can't build bigger and no one builds less than the max allowed. So the question is whether you prefer shorter, wider towers, or taller thinner towers. I generally prefer the latter because it preserves street-level vitality and historic buildings. 57th Street still has delis and tiny historic buildings, in part because the new tower footprints are tiny.

Sure, building as high as humanly possible on often tight sites is a classic Manhattanism - and the results are certainly an impressive structural feat, to be sure. But you still ultimately need to consider height:width ratio as an aesthetic judgement. And while I actually like skinny towers, there's a point at which they start to look like gawky, weirdly anorexic twigs teetering above the skyline.




The supertalls of West 57th aren't built to that height for economic viability under any usual circumstances though. The cost of construction relative to floorspace is extremely inefficient and is only made viable by being able to market them to the ultra-rich at a premium on the basis of being really, really tall.

Otherwise, if we're talking about more typical infill buildings I agree with you - better to go thin and tall(ish) than short and squat.

Hopefully next decade. Only really need two signature ones.

Couldn’t find a better picture but I honestly think this was the best rendition of NY’s skyline, besides the 1930s. There was balance and girth like I mentioned before.

https://live.staticflickr.com/3060/2...5a3e4712_k.jpgNew York by Stephy, on Flickr

When the first toothpick was erected, I really was not a fan of the appearance and what it did to the existing skyline. However, since there are now 4 toothpicks [with more to come], I really like the new skyline much more than before.