Posted Apr 17, 2020, 4:15 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,914
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https://www.ft.com/content/1f95c4fc-...b-7ec06edeef84
The highs and lows of a New York skyscraper king
Michael Stern changed the city’s skyline. Can he weather the impact of coronavirus on luxury property?
Joshua Chaffin
April 17, 2020
Quote:
If Walker Tower was complicated, 111 West 57th was another order of magnitude. Buying Steinway and then the air rights from a neighbouring building allowed the team to go higher — exceeding 1,400ft. But they would have to leave the landmarked piano hall largely intact and build around it — without disturbing the existing tenants. That meant boring 70ft into the rock below with hand drills instead of heavy demolition equipment.
“They were selling and tuning pianos while we were working underneath them,” Stern explained. Because they were building in one of the busiest places on earth, the staging area for the construction would have to be inside the building itself. For safety reasons, the crane could not operate when the wind speed topped 35mph.
“It’s hard enough to build that in the desert with nothing around you — but to build that in the urban context, through a landmark, without disturbing existing occupants,” Stern said. “This was a war.”
Pasquarelli drew on the tapered, “step-back” style that shaped New York skyscrapers after a 1916 zoning resolution that was intended to limit their shadows on the streets below — but 111 steps back, not in blocky chunks but tiny increments, like the blades of a feather. An interlocking web of terracotta — not glass — was used for the facade. Each pilaster is sculpted to create, from a distance, a swirling texture, like a snake’s skin.
“It’s a New York building. That building — if you put it down anywhere else it would be inappropriate,” Stern declared. He had also restored the adjoining Steinway building, as part of the agreement to win approval from the city’s historical preservation commission. How does it feel to look up at your own skyscraper, I asked? We were standing on 57th Street, our heads tilted upwards. “F**king crazy,” he replied.
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