As of today, as you probably already know, 1 World Trade Center reached the historic height of 1,271 feet, eclipsing the Empire State Building and reclaiming its place as the tallest building in the city. In honor of that achievement, the tower will be lit up red, white and blue tonight. The Observer asked Tony Malkin, owner of the iconic tower, what he thought of being No. 2 again. Read More
Everyone has been eagerly awaiting the topping out of 1 World Trade Center. While that milestone is still a few weeks or months away, as early as next week, the SOM-designed, Port Authority-built tower will surpass the Empire State Building as the tallest in the city.
In honor of that occasion, Earthcam, which has been monitoring the site with great fervor, put together a timelapse of the tower’s rise. It is an amazing site to behold, if also a troubling one—how did it take eight years for a tower, even one of this magnitude, to rise? (Well, we sort of know why. Still, it took half as long for the twice-as-tall Burj Khalifa, though that is also another story of immigrant labor and infinite money.)
Cynicism aside, it is is an impressive feat, especially considering we were only halfway here a year-and-a-half ago. Read More
The MTA is going beyond the call (literally as phone calls and angry messages are filling up their inboxes) of duty to ensure that residents on the Upper East Side are getting a good night’s sleep.
After repeated complaints that residents are being kept awake at night by construction at the future 72nd Street subway station, the MTA will begin offering nighttime visits to apartments around the area. Engineers from the agency will start their visits starting around 10 p.m. in order to hear the noise and feel the pain that residents are going through while construction continues on the Second Avenue subway line. Read More
The multi-colored muscle behind the City’s construction industry has been revealed through an analysis of U.S. Census data, and contrary to stereotypes, a solid majority of construction workers are now drawn from minority backgrounds. Read More
If the lingering after effects of the recession and Manhattan’s already arduous construction environment weren’t challenging enough to builders in the city, the Department of Transportation’s annual holiday construction embargo is about take effect.
Starting tomorrow and in effect through January 2, 2012, the rules prohibit construction projects from blocking streets and walkways in various areas of the city, including 30th to 60th Streets river to river in midtown. Read More
NBA legend and nascent developer Magic Johnson has engendered even more criticism and controversy for his ongoing renovation of the Mason Mints Factory building in Brooklyn Heights, as the Daily News reports, and now things are turning litigious. Read More
The city’s ironworkers and carpenters have never much gotten along. Falling somewhere between rival sports teams and armies at war, the construction unions responsible for the city’s tall buildings rarely work together—office buildings are made from steel, apartments from concrete (which is poured by the carpenter’s union). “Is there ego? There is certainly pride amongst these unions, and not a little competition,” said Gary Higby director of industry development at the Steel Institute of New York, a trade group.
But 9/11 changed that, or at least the rebuilding of 7 World Trade Center did. It was not simply a matter of camaraderie but also necessity. “Obviously, what you had to do after 9/11 was address the fundamental question of how are we going to create buildings that are as safe as can be in a post-9/11 world,” said Janno Lieber, president of World Trade Center Properties at Silverstein Properties. “The concrete core was probably the single most important of hundreds of safety innovations at 7 World Trade Center that went beyond code. It was a huge step forward for safety and structural robustness.” Read More
The Building Congress yesterday came out with an understandably bleak construction report showing sluggish growth during the Great Recession in new office space, among other things, and not holding out too much hope for the rest of 2011. This year, in fact, will mark the first since 2000 with no new office tower opening.
But is that the worst thing in the world for commercial real estate here and for New York City in general? Read More
Those who are stubbornly optimistic about the return of the Manhattan office market might want to take a close look at this report from the New York Building Congress.
It looks like major commercial development in Manhattan is still sluggish, which is no surprise considering the recent recession. In fact, the report blames the downturn in significant new office construction on the “dramatic decline in employment along with a sharp rise in office vacancies.”
Still, ever-positive as the Building Congress is, the trade group sees a silver lining to this slowdown. Read More
As real estate prices in the city, or at least in Manhattan, approach pre-Lehman levels, and the wider economy teeters back from the brink, the guys who built the apartments are still suffering. According to a quarterly report from the New York Building Congress, employment for construction workers fell to its lowest level Read More
