I am not cool with tearing this building down. Surely there are some ugly 30-40 story boxes in the neighborhood that they could tear down instead.

You'll have to learn that it's a living and thriving city. Buildings that aren't getting the best possible use (for both the site and the building) sometimes make way for better purposes. This site sits directly accross the street from Grand Central. In no sense should the city leave them standing because they're old, and nothing old should be touched. Nothing would ever get done, and they would be charing admission to enter "Manhattan, a museum of the City that was".

Excellent news, I am very excited. This is a perfect place to build a super tall, even more for being next to the Metlife and close to Chrysler.

It seems they are thinking something impressive ... It would be awesome. I'll be in waiting and hoping for it to be built.

I initially had that sentiment as well, then I came around to what NYguy said -- especially if they are (hopefully) planning to build something iconic. I think of it as an opportunity to build an Empire State State Building of the 21st Century.

Sidenote: I'd love someone to call for the replacement of that horrible Hyatt Hotel directly east of Grand Central Terminal.

The problem with that is that quite a few of the most livable and beautiful cities in the world have preserved their old buildings. There's a reason why Paris is generally deemed more aesthetically attractive than Hong Kong. Remember, there's more to a buidling than just it's height...

While I'm all for modern skyscrapers, it would be nice see this building built somewhere else in the city. In any case, I don't think present market conditions will fuel demand for another mega skyscraper anytime soon. Right now, it just seems like a very grandiose pipe dream.

Asuming that this site gets a 40% zoning upgrade and manages to purchase nearly all of the air rights above Grand Central (with a similar zoning upgrade) along with all the possible FAR bnefits, how tall would this thing be by roof height? To me it would almost certainly be taller than 432 Park, 1 WTC and 225 W57th, possibly even approaching 1,600 feet considerng the small lot that this tower will be built on.

/optimism

I hope whatever is built here looks similar to what I.M. Pei proposed back in the 50's.

http://archrecord.construction.com/i...11history3.jpg
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No need to be condescending.

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I never said that nothing old should be touched. When there is a row of four story buildings with similar architecture, I don't mind if a few of them are torn down. What you're arguing is an extreme side of the debate, and it's that attitude, I think, that led to the destruction of Penn Station and the Singer Building. Hell, the World Building and the Manhattan Life Insurance Building were demolished because they wanted to extend the ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge. We're talking about architectural marvels that, in the aggregate, added a great deal to the image of the city.

Like I said, demolish some of the shorter ugly 50's-70's boxes instead.

What is going to be demolished here is not an architectural marvel.

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I'm not saying that it is, but Manhattan wouldn't be nearly as appealing if it didn't have pre-war skyscrapers flanking more modern buildings throughout the CBDs. The point I was making was about the attitude of being willing to let go of these buildings. New York City has a much higher ratio of pre-war to post-war skyscrapers than any other city on Earth, I see no reason to decrease our stock of these buildings. Like I said, tear down some of the smaller post-war boxes instead, the world has plenty of those to go around.

Hopefully the GiraSole and this can have a height battle :D

There really is no other option than tearing these old ones down and as much as I would like to see less appealing buidings in that area getting torn down instead, it won't happen because the location for this tower is excellent, the lot was presumably cheaper and is currently being underutilized in my opinion.


This, The Girasole, 225 W57th, whatever is going to rise at the site opposite of One Hudson Yards (has the most air rights in the entire Hudson Boulevard area) and a whole lot of towers in Midtown and the Far West Side we don't even know about.
It's going to be an all out war :D

This is very exciting news. I'm a little saddened to hear that they will have to raze a few pre-war buildings and I think this is only the beginning of what's to come in the area for the sake of progress.
But....to get another iconic tower in the very heart of the city right next to two of NY's crown jewels......hot damn is all I can say.
Interesting how they mentioned the Mori tower in Tokyo as inspiration. It is not even close to as tall as the other buildings mentioned and it is also a massive building that sits on several acres worth of land. This plot is on a small block so I'm wondering what's up with the Mori tower reference. I used to visit Tokyo every weekend and loved the Roppongi Hills complex and hope NY can get something similar but I just don't see it with this.

Ok I quickly came up with some basic numbers based off those assumptions.

Assuming 1.2 msf is as of right and a 40% zoning increase, the new as of right build-able square footage is 1.68 msf.
A quick search of available GCT air rights yielded between 1.2msf and 1.9msf. I used the 1.9msf figure... tack on an additional 40% and we have 2.66 msf to take from GCT.

Without factoring in bonuses for tranist connections, etc... the total square footage is 4.34msf.

According to google maps, the block is about 200x200ft or 40,000 SF which at 4.34msf gives us 109 floors if they build straight up.

Multiply by a standard office floor to floor height of ~13 ft and we have 1,417 ft high box. Keep in mind the owners are drawing inspiration from towers that "curve and soar" so a box is likely not in mind... expect something higher than 1,400ft.

/wild optimism

A single project can't take 100% of GCT air rights. There are certain restrictions.

But they can certainly take a big chunk of those rights.

I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night so this tower will rise to about 1,450 feet

1,450 feet was the exact height of the proposed building by I.M. Pei back in the 1950's at almost the same location. It would be interesting like I said if they used his design.

wait...what? :shrug:

Exactly, just as there is more to the point than preserving some just for the sake of preserving. The question to ask is do these buildings continue to function as the best use possible for that site in the heart of the best know business district in the world, next to one of the busiest transportation centers in the City, not is it deemed "more aesthetically attractive".

I have no such concerns about preserving these buildings. I could understand the concern for anyone who has never been to Manhattan, but it would be simply foolish for anyone who has to suggest it is at all in danger of losing it's old buildings. If we were talking about tearing down Grand Central, you'd have a different argument.


The largest building on site is 41 E. 42 (on right in photo). However, they could potentially use either of the addresses, such as 331 Madison (on left) or create something completely new. It's not that important at this point.


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/143865961/large.jpg



http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/143865961/original.jpg



freddan212

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5107/5...0462b170_b.jpg

Fortunately, (correct me if I'm wrong), it looks like the building directly facing grand central will stay.

Also, the argument that we are just losing these one or two buildings shouldn't be looked at in this local scale. We are losing a pretty big wave of buildings here, forgive my absent mindedness but there have been 2 recent reclads of large prewar buildings on madison-avenue, the infamous reclad of 1775 Broadway, and destruction of the drake so far. Already in the Grand Central Terminal City there have been 2 reclads of beautiful old buildings, the Grand Hyatt (by trump in the late 80s), and the Bank of America office tower right across the street from this one (totally gutted like 25 years ago). Now there's talk of demolishing this pair of buildings, the destruction of the former MTA headquarters a couple blocks away, 15 Penn Plaza, 516 5th avenue, and now talk of rezoning eastern midtown?

It boggles my mind that so much fight is put in to save redundant row houses and single family homes in other parts of the city, when so many pre-war office towers and hotels are being put on the chopping block with no care given by anyone. New York must grow but there are already so many office proposals on the west side, (which by the way none have tenants yet) and yet we want to put more here as well? New York is gonna set itself up for a bust if so much space is allowed to come online at once in the next few years, and we will also manage to lose some really nice architecture in the process.