Main | Saturday, August 26, 2006

Bank Of America Tower Rising In Midtown

With the demise of the World Trade Center, the four tallest buildings in NYC are all about 75 years old. But change is coming and the building I'm watching most excitedly is the Bank Of America Tower, currently going up at the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, which upon completion in about 2 years, will become NYC's second tallest building. The building will have two spires, one at 1200 feet and one at 945, placing it second only to the Empire State in height, even though it will only have 57 floors of office space.

Being constructed with tax-free Liberty Bonds, intended to rebuild lower Manhattan after 9/11, the BOA Tower is not without controversy. However, the public's imagination (and mine!) has been captured by some unique aspects to the tower, which include a giant wind turbine at its top, which is claimed will be able to provide 70% of the building's electricity needs. Builders also claim that the building's air purification system will exhaust cleaner air than enters the building, rendering the tower as one giant air filtration system for the city.

Also of interest is the builders' claim to be using mostly recycled materials and their plan for a greywater system with will capture and reuse waste water and rainwater. I'll be grabbing pictures of construction of the BOA Tower every few months and posting them here. The main skeleton should be done in about a year. This glass tower, for once, looks like a beauty.

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