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  #41  
Old Posted Jun 25, 2022, 10:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quixote View Post
From far away, the skinny towers give the skyline a Gotham-y look and look great in silhouette. They make the skyline more unique IMO. But I understand why many find them ridiculous.
Yeah under the right conditions.

I think it really depends on the angle too, the skinnies add a lot, especially as stated, to a silhouette.



Sun Setting in NYC by Edgar Omar, on Flickr



Sunset Behind NYC by Edgar Omar, on Flickr
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  #42  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2022, 2:47 PM
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The skinny towers can appear like 70 Pine in a Berenice Abbott photo, surging above the Equitable Building and similar. It's like Crawford said, either you like skinny or you like fat. And skyscrapers have always been extreme hierarchical forms. This is Babylon. There is no real equity critique that leaves room for enjoying the '20s skyline.
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  #43  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2022, 3:26 PM
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Would I rather have a bunch of rich asshats in the suburbs, or living in pencil thin skyscrapers in the city? Decisions…

On appearance alone, the buildings don’t hinder the skyline. They certainly offer something new. New York is also low on available space, so they certainly provide an excellent solution.

Have there been many built for uses other than upscale residential?
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  #44  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2022, 5:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xing View Post
Would I rather have a bunch of rich asshats in the suburbs, or living in pencil thin skyscrapers in the city? Decisions…

On appearance alone, the buildings don’t hinder the skyline. They certainly offer something new. New York is also low on available space, so they certainly provide an excellent solution.

Have there been many built for uses other than upscale residential?
No, these are all residential for the 0.1%. Not even 1%. You're probably not even getting into an entry level unit in any of them without a net worth of $40 million. I also doubt that many owners use these units as their primary residence.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2022, 6:39 PM
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I'm late to the conversion, but in particular I hate 111W57 from the north and the Bronx. It looks like a 1,500 foot power station chimney.
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  #46  
Old Posted Jun 26, 2022, 10:00 PM
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Big thumbs up from me! 111 and Verre are modern masterpieces

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  #47  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 12:22 AM
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Broadly defining what beautiful means for buildings, or even a skyline made up of those buildings, based on their width or height seems strange to me. I don't think skinnier is inherently better nor is it inherently worse. To broadly praise or dismiss art in any medium in such a broad way really doesn't make any sense.

Imagine saying that always half of a photograph should be sharp and in focus, never any more or any less, or that films should always be 2 hours long and use the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and never 2.35:1, or that paintings should always be 48cm by 60cm and their brush strokes should always measure 1cm wide or something like that.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 1:28 AM
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I absolutely love the skinny towers. Definitely a great addition to the skyline.

Anyone who dislikes the effect these supertall pencil towers have on the New York skyline should be forced to hand over their SSP membership card; what on Earth are they doing on a skyscraper oriented website?!?
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  #49  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 1:30 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
Yeah under the right conditions.

I think it really depends on the angle too, the skinnies add a lot, especially as stated, to a silhouette.



Sun Setting in NYC by Edgar Omar, on Flickr
To elaborate on my previous post, a pic like this ^ should be giving the Average SSP User a skyscraper-gasm.

Unthinkable IMO that anyone here would dislike that.

Now, if this site were a NIMBY oriented page, then yeah, okay, some of us would "dislike change", etc. But we're on a skyscraper website, FFS.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 6:21 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quixote View Post
From far away, the skinny towers give the skyline a Gotham-y look and look great in silhouette. They make the skyline more unique IMO. But I understand why many find them ridiculous.

I don't know about that. "Gotham City" is a dark gloomy noirish city loaded with supervillains that Batman vanquishes one by one. Gotham is loaded with neo-gothic, neo-classical and art deco towers. The neo-gothics are loaded with gargoyles. These skinny stick and industrial smokestack towers would be out of place in Gotham City in my opinion, as would be projects like "futuristic" Hudson Yards. By the way, is Gotham patterned on NYC or Chicago? It is debatable....somebody should start a thread. No question though that Superman's "Metropolis" is NYC. Dick Tracy's city might be Depression era Chicago with some modern gadgets tossed in, like wrist 2 way radios.

Last edited by CaliNative; Jun 27, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
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  #51  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 7:05 AM
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Delete. Duplicate post.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 12:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
I still think Lower Manhattan has the best skyline but at the same time, DoBro is catching up. It has its unique look to it. Good symmetry for now.


1) DoBro

The way things are going, LIC will eventually fuse with DoBro along the East River.
Using the name "DoBro" three times in one post is three times too many. Don't you ever utter that fucking stupid name ever again.
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  #53  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 1:40 PM
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But DoBro is an increasingly important skyscraper cluster. It's no MidMan but it's a rival to JerCit.
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  #54  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 1:55 PM
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drop dead gorgeous.

I don't dislike the pencil towers' transformation of midtown Manhattan. Some of the individual towers leave much to be desired (e.g., 432 Park), while others are fantastic (e.g, 53w53)


In any event, the pencil towers leave room for more skyscrapers to fill the gaps. Whereas the awful boxes lining the waterfront in the financial district block the view of the wonderful slender towers of the 1910s-1940s
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  #55  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:01 PM
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Just because 53W 53rd is new and in the vicinity, doesn't make it a "pencil tower." I keep seeing that example but it doesn't fit.
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  #56  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan View Post
orrrrr, i personally dont like them cause they dont look particularly good. Im not adverse to change at all
Many of them are arguably some of the most architecturally innovative skyscrapers on the continent. The Nordstrom Tower is a little basic.. but far from ugly, with the rest of them presenting unique, very high end architectural designs.

The problem isn't that they are ugly.

Many will try to rationalize their distaste for them, but ultimately the distaste is rooted in the fact that they didn't exist 10 years ago, and that's it.

Personally I think they are great additions to the city.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I don't understand how both opinions can be simultaneously true.

If fat towers ruined Lower Manhattan's skinny profile, fine. If skinny towers ruined Midtown Manhattan's fat profile, fine. But how could both statements be true?
The original "skinny towers" had a much smaller height-to-width ratio than the new set. It's actually very simple to understand.

First, the original towers with the "perfect" ratios.
diagram 1 by David Z, on Flickr

Second, some of the "too fat" towers in downtown Manhattan.
diagram 2 by David Z, on Flickr

Finally, the new "pencil towers" where the height to width ratios are at least double the original "skinny towers" of lower Manhattan.
diagram 3 by David Z, on Flickr

In simplified terms, an approximate 5:1 ratio is good, 3:1 ratio got too fat, and 12:1 ratio is so far in the other direction that it's not at all comparable to the 5:1. Thus, of course both things could be true, since the "skinny" buildings went from around 5:1 to 12:1. One can lament the loss of a skyline dominated by a 5:1 ratio while simultaneously thinking that 12:1 is too skinny and looks out of place.

The way you framed your comment is by calling them both "skinny" towers, as if 5:1 and 12:1 were the same. They're not even close to the same. So, "both statements can be true" if you were truthful yourself, by recognizing that 1930's "skinny" and 2020's "skinny" are not apples-to-apples and shouldn't be lumped into the same category.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:23 PM
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I don't understand the dislike of 432 Park.

From an urbanist perspective, it has excellent street-level interaction.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7619...7i16384!8i8192

Architecturally, yes, it's a modernist box, in line with Park Avenue. That portion of Midtown is dominated by a Mad Men-era gestalt. The developer and architect are both unapologetic modernists.

There are some subtle architectural departures, like if you look at the angled eastern portion of the 57th Street street facade.

The height is no longer so weird, now that there are taller neighbors, with more planned.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I don't understand the dislike of 432 Park.

From an urbanist perspective, it has excellent street-level interaction.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7619...7i16384!8i8192

Architecturally, yes, it's a modernist box, in line with Park Avenue. That portion of Midtown is dominated by a Mad Men-era gestalt. There are some subtle architectural departures, like if you look at the curving eastern portion of the 57th Street street facade.

The height is no longer so weird, now that there are taller neighbors, with more planned.
It’s my favorite pencil one. The others have very tacky elements.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2022, 2:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DZH22 View Post
The way you framed your comment is by calling them both "skinny" towers, as if 5:1 and 12:1 were the same. They're not even close to the same. So, "both statements can be true" if you were truthful yourself, by recognizing that 1930's "skinny" and 2020's "skinny" are not apples-to-apples and shouldn't be lumped into the same category.
IMO you're cherrypicking. No one thinks of 40 Wall or 70 Pine as unusually skinny towers. And it's the skyline element, not the base, that matters. Singer Tower was extremely skinny. Woolworth, 20 Exchange and One Wall are skinny.

Lower Manhattan, pre-Chase Manhattan Plaza, was dominated by skinny spires. From an aesthetic perspective, I don't understand how someone can lament the rise of skinny spires in Midtown while praising their presence downtown.
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