The Destruction Of Penn Station

Mashable has published a photo essay which looks back at the original Penn Station.

In 1910, when New York City transportation terminal Pennsylvania Station opened, it was widely praised for its majestic architecture. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style, it featured pink granite construction and a stately colonnade on the exterior.The main waiting room, inspired by the Roman Baths of Caracalla, was the largest indoor space in the city — a block and a half long with vaulted glass windows soaring 150 feet over a sun-drenched chamber. Beyond that, trains emerged from bedrock to deposit passengers on a concourse lit by an arching glass and steel greenhouse roof. This may sound unfamiliar for present-day residents of New York City, who know Penn Station as a miserable subterranean labyrinth. Though the original Penn Station served 100 million passengers a year at its peak in 1945, by the late 1950s the advent of affordable air travel and the Interstate Highway System had cut into train use. The Pennsylvania Railroad could not even afford to keep the station clean.

The station was demolished in the early 1960s for the construction of the fourth iteration of Madison Square Garden, which was originally located across town, hello, at Madison Square. Hit the link and lament.

AUSTRALIA: Beyonce Inspires Skyscraper

Vogue reports:

In case you didn’t have enough proof that Beyoncé is slowly taking over the world, Australia just approved plans to build a 68-story skyscraper in the shape of the singer’s famously curvaceous figure. While there have been plenty of oddly shaped structures that have gone up in the past—such as these constructions in the form of a robot, a lotus flower, and a basket—this is the first time a building has been inspired by a living pop star. The architecture firm Elenberg Fraser unveiled its plans for the undulating skyscraper yesterday and admits on its website that the shape of the Premier Tower was ultimately borrowed from Beyoncé’s “Ghost” video.

The tower will go up across from Melbourne's famed Spencer Street train station.

First Look: 2 World Trade Center

Via Architecture  Daily:

Designed as seven unique building stacked on top of each other, the stepped 2 WTC tower will rise 1,340 feet – a height that would make it Manhattan’s third-tallest building if built today. 21st Century Fox and News Corp will occupy the 80-plus story building’s lower half. The upper portion of the building will be leased by Silverstein Properties to various tenants. Each tenants’ unique set of needs will be accommodated by the seven custom tailored volumes. At its base will be a 8,000 square-feet (3,530 square-meter) lobby, connected to Santiago Calatrava’s neighboring transit hub, and retail. 38,000 square-feet (3,530 square-meters) of lush outdoor terraces will be integrated throughout the building.

Many more renderings are at the link. 

1WTC Eleven Year Time-Lapse

1.2M views already. The observation deck opened this week.

(Tipped by JMG reader Ray)

Mecca To Get World's Biggest Hotel

Via the Guardian:

Four helipads will cluster around one of the largest domes in the world, like sideplates awaiting the unveiling of a momentous main course, which will be jacked up 45 storeys into the sky above the deserts of Mecca. It is the crowning feature of the holy city’s crowning glory, the superlative summit of what will be the world’s largest hotel when it opens in 2017. With 10,000 bedrooms and 70 restaurants, plus five floors for the sole use of the Saudi royal family, the £2.3bn Abraj Kudai is an entire city of five-star luxury, catering to the increasingly high expectations of well-heeled pilgrims from the Gulf. Modelled on a “traditional desert fortress”, seemingly filtered through the eyes of a Disneyland imagineer with classical pretensions, the steroidal scheme comprises 12 towers teetering on top of a 10-storey podium, which houses a bus station, shopping mall, food courts, conference centre and a lavishly appointed ballroom.

According to Euromonitor, Mecca ranks 17th in international visitors annually.

New Details About NYC's Nordstrom Tower

New York Yimby has some new details about midtown's coming Nordstrom Tower, which is now under construction.

Permits for the tower have continued to shift slightly in recent months, but the documents YIMBY previously obtained indicated the building would have a roof height of 1,479 feet and a pinnacle height of 1,775 feet, which would make it the tallest residential tower on the planet. Final figures are likely to be within a hair of both numbers. Compared to the world’s tallest buildings, 217 West 57th Street would rank fifth if it were built today, standing almost 1,000 feet shorter than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and by 2018 it may not crack the global top ten. But its roof will be substantially taller than both One World Trade Center and Willis Tower. The most recent figures put 217 West 57th’s Spire one foot below the WTC’s 1,776-foot pinnacle.

Despite this, the slight elevation of Midtown compared to the Financial District (a net gain of approximately 70 feet) will mean that 217 West 57th Street’s spire will actually rise approximately 1,850 feet above sea level. While the WTC may retain the title of NYC’s tallest by spire height, 217 West 57th’s relative prominence to most New Yorkers will actually be somewhat greater. 432 Park Avenue passed the WTC’s roof last year, and One Vanderbilt will likely do so in about 2017. 432 Park is currently regarded as somewhat tall relative to its surrounds, but the appearance of new buildings like 217 West 57th and 111 West 57th will quickly even out the disparities in the skyline, as will the rezoning of Midtown East, which may result in Manhattan’s tallest towers yet.

The tower is due to be completed in 2018 and will host a massive Nordstrom store, a hotel, and several hundred condos. The penthouse is expected to feature the highest outdoor space in the city. (The rendering above shows the 70th floor observation deck at Rockefeller Center.) Within five years or so the Empire State may not be among the ten tallest buildings in town. The Nordstrom Tower is #27 in the "coming soon" rendering below. Embiggen for a huge version.

1WTC Elevator NYC Time-Lapse

Via the New York Times:

An imposingly realistic vision of the old 1 World Trade Center, the ultimately doomed north tower, will begin appearing next month in a most unlikely place: the five special elevators servicing the observatory atop the new 1 World Trade Center. From the moment the doors close until they reopen 47 seconds later on the 102nd floor, a seemingly three-dimensional time-lapse panorama will unfold on three walls of the elevator cabs, as if one were witnessing 515 years of history unfolding at the tip of Manhattan Island. For less than four seconds (roughly proportional to the time the twin towers stood), jarringly familiar pinstripe facades will loom into view on one wall of the cab. Then, in a quick dissolve, they will evanesce. There would have been no way around Sept. 11, 2001, said David W. Checketts, the chairman and chief executive of Legends Hospitality, the company chosen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2013 to operate the three-level observatory.

Hit the link for much more. The ride will cost $32.

Architectural Digest Profiles Harlem Home Of Neil Patrick Harris & David Burtka

Via the Huffington Post:

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka are giving Architectural Digest readers some major real estate envy, showing off their five-story Manhattan townhouse in the magazine's March issue. The couple, who tied the knot in Italy last September, told the magazine that they began searching for a New York abode once Harris' stint on "How I Met Your Mother" began to wrap in 2013. Although they'd been living in Los Angeles for nearly a decade by that point, Harris and Burtka always intended to head east with twins Gideon Scott and Harper Grace, and eventually settled on the townhouse, which is located on Fifth Avenue in New York's Harlem neighborhood.

See the article here.

Orlando Loses Iconic Neon Sign

Brooklyn and Philadelphia both lost iconic neon signs this year and today the same happens in my hometown of Orlando.

For decades, the Merita Bread sign acted as a welcoming beacon to downtown Orlando for those traveling eastbound on I-4, just south of downtown. Two years ago, the bread company closed its doors when Hostess, its former parent company, went bankrupt. Tomorrow morning’s commute will be the last time the iconic neon sign greets drivers to downtown Orlando. After more than 50 years, the Merita Bread sign is coming down. The new owners of the former Merita Bread building, Maudlin International Trucks of Orlando, is giving the double-sided sign and the neon letters on the side of the building to the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which plans to fully restore the sign and add it to their growing collection of historic Orlando signs. The sign will be dismantled in sections and is anticipated to be completely wiped from our skyline by 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13.

The Merita sign was one of the most beloved in Florida, perhaps because just as motorists rounded the downtown curve of I-4, windows would be rolled down as the sign came into into view accompanied by the delicious scent of baking bread. When my friends and I would return from excursions to South Florida, we always said that we weren't officially home until we could see the Merita sign. Heck, back in the 80s we even had a local drag queen named Merita Brioche.

Afternoon View - Provincetown House

This Commercial Street house used to be a fire station. The owners remodeled the truck bay so that the door rolls up to reveal a cozy front porch.

NEW YORK CITY: Midtown Manhattan May Get World's Tallest Residential Tower

According to plans leaked by New York Yimby, a skyscraper planned for midtown Manhattan would be only one foot shorter than WTC 1, making it the tallest residential tower in the world.

225 West 57th Street‘s facade will top-out 1,479′ above street level, while a surprise spire on top will cap the tower at 1,775 feet. Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill are designing the building. New York City’s skyscraper boom is entering unparalleled territory, and 225 West 57th Street could very well represent the crest of the current wave, assuming the tower is financed. The new height details will result in several superlatives: Manhattan will finally retake the ‘tallest roof’ in the United States from Chicago’s Willis Tower, which stands 1,451′, and 225 West 57th Street will become the tallest residential building in the entire world, surpassing both 432 Park Avenue and Mumbai’s World One Tower.

Several other midtown towers now under construction will challenge the height of the Empire State Building. (Via Towleroad)

Afternoon View - The Strand

Key West's Strand Theater is now a Walgreens, but you can see they did a great job of preserving many of the old elements, including the box office. 

1WTC Wins "Tallest" Ruling

One World Trade Center has been judged the tallest building in the western hemisphere by the "official" ruling body of such matters. Sorry, Chicago.

The nonprofit Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat—the accepted arbiter on matters of skyscraper height—on Tuesday ruled that the spire atop One World Trade Center counts toward the official "architectural" height, making the new tower the tallest building in the U.S., at 1,776 feet. "We determined the structure above the mass of the building was in fact a spire," said Timothy Johnson, the council's chairman. At issue was whether the One World Trade's 408-foot steel mast is considered a "spire" that is part of the building's architecture. A structural spire counts toward the height; but an antenna doesn't. The council's guidelines are brief, calling for buildings to be measured to their "architectural top," including spires but not antennas or other functional equipment. Last week Mr. Childs flew to Chicago to urge the council to count the mast as a spire, saying the symbolic height was a key part of the design.

According to the council, by far the tallest building in the world is Dubai's Burj Khalifa at 163 floors and 2717 feet. When completed, it appears that One World Trade Center will rank at third on that list, although several other super-skyscrapers are also presently under construction.

Which Is The Tallest?

The "arbiters of world building heights" are meeting this weekend to decide if the almost-completed One World Trade Center will take the crown from Chicago's Willis Tower as the tallest building in the western hemisphere.

"Most of the time these decisions are not so controversial," said Daniel Safarik, an architect and spokesman for the nonprofit Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The 30 members of its Height Committee are meeting to render a judgment behind closed doors in Chicago, where the world's first skyscraper appeared in 1884. The committee, comprising industry professionals from all over the world, will announce its decision next week. The question over 1 World Trade Center, which remains under construction and is expected to open next year, arose because of a change to the design of its tower-topping needle. Under the council's current criteria, spires that are an integral part of a building's aesthetic design count; broadcast antennas that can be added and removed do not. The designers of 1 World Trade Center had intended to enclose the mast's communications gear in decorative cladding made of fiberglass and steel. But the developer removed that exterior shell from the design, saying it would be impossible to properly maintain or repair. Without it, the question is whether the mast is now primarily just a broadcast antenna.

Embiggen the above graphic for some comparisons.

New York Times Rejects Banksy Op-Ed That Slams One World Trade Center

Via Yahoo News:

Banksy, the elusive British street artist nearing the end of a month-long New York City residency, published an op-ed column on his website Sunday slamming the design of One World Trade Center, the 104-story skyscraper scheduled to be opened on the World Trade Center site next year. "As a visitor staying New York for the past few weeks one thing has become very clear to me," Banksy wrote in the op-ed. "You've got to do something about the new World Trade Center. That building is a disaster. Well no, disasters are interesting. One World Trade centre [sic] is a non-event. It's vanilla. It looks like something they would build in Canada." Banksy submitted the op-ed to the New York Times, which declined to publish it. "We couldn't agree on either the piece or the art, so we did reject it," Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, told Yahoo News.

Banksy's website is here.

London's "Fryscraper" Melts Cars

Adding The Spire To One WTC

You might want a Dramamine by the halfway point.

NYC To Get 96-Story Condo Tower

The 79-story One Carnegie isn't finished yet, but its claim as the city's tallest residential building will be short-lived because 432 Park (rendering above) will be even taller at 96 stories. That will give it the national record, eclipsing Chicago's 92-story Trump Tower.

The building, known as 432 Park, has a total asking price for its 126 units of $2.7 billion, according to a filing this week with the New York attorney general. That amount reflects a 13% increase over July and is the highest total asking price ever for a Manhattan condominium. The building's average asking price of $6,742 a foot also is near the top. When finished in 2015, the Rafael Viñoly-designed tower will rise 1,396 feet, making it the tallest residential building in the U.S. The exterior features 1,800 glass windows, each measuring about 100 square feet, that are part of every apartment.

Unit prices range from a paltry $20M to the $86M penthouse.  The world's tallest apartment building is Dubai's Princess Tower at 100 stories, but much taller buildings are under construction in the Middle East and Asia.

RELATED: Very tall buildings are typically constructed to sway in the wind at 1/500th of their height.  Toronto's CN Tower, for example, reports a sway of  "three feet, four inches from center" at the Sky Pod observation deck level. I have a friend who has to retreat to the lobby of his 37 floor Jersey City apartment building because the sway makes him occasionally seasick. I wonder how he'd do at the top of 432 Park, where the sway might be more than two feet.

Inside The Chrysler Building Spire

To get to the very top of the Chrysler Building's spire, you must climb over 100 feet of ladders after reaching the top floor.

Morning View: Philly City Hall

Philadelphia City Hall was the world's tallest building from 1901-1908. The 548 foot tower remains the tallest masonry building in the world.  At 37 feet, the statue of William Penn is the tallest atop any building in the world.  So sez Wikipedia.