This past spring, Anthony Malkin, president of Malkin Properties and an owner of the Empire State Building, started paying attention to an office tower planned by Vornado Realty Trust. The giant office landlord was seeking approvals to build a tower up to 1,216 feet high two blocks to his building's west, on what's now the site of the Hotel Pennsylvania, at 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue.

The tower's height, to Mr. Malkin, was worrisome, so he researched the issue and fired off a letter to the City Planning Commission, raising concerns about the effect it would have on views of the landmarked Empire State Building. The letter had no impact: The commission voted to approve Vornado's tower without major changes.

Now, with the skyscraper poised to clear a final hurdle before a key City Council committee next week, Mr. Malkin is rushing to round up critics of the tower—and supporters of the Empire State Building's unique place in the skyline—in an attempt to urge the Council or Vornado to scale back.

And while many civic groups and elected officials have generally been supportive of the new tower so far, Mr. Malkin has caught at least a bit of traction: On Tuesday, the New York Landmarks Conservancy decided to speak out about the tower on account of the effect on the Empire State Building; and other civic groups are considering similar actions.

"What this does to New York City, we think, is wrong," Mr. Malkin told The Observer Tuesday. "It just boggles the mind that people would allow this to be done to the skyline of New York City. Is this our persona: cold; impersonal?"

FOR EIGHT DECADES, the Empire State Building has dominated the public's perception of New York City's skyline. Not only is the Art Deco tower the city's tallest, but its aesthetic supremacy is compounded by its location: At 34th Street, it is south of the skyscraper fray of central midtown, making it a tree amid the plains of midtown south.

Two blocks west and one block south, Vornado—an office space titan headed by its forceful, Bronx-raised chairman, Steve Roth—has its own vision for the skyline, and it's somewhat different. For more than a decade, Mr. Roth has been scooping up property after property around Penn Station, guided by the hope that when New York grows and needs new sites for office towers, they will blossom around the country's largest rail hub.

Chief in this vision is a would-be office tower to rise in place of the cramped and dingy Hotel Pennsylvania—a Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed skyscraper that would, as currently envisioned, rise from a boxy base like a slightly tapering glass obelisk, soaring to 1,216 feet (or 1,190 feet, under a second design). Given that this would put it just 34 feet shy of the Empire State Building's peak (the antenna is not counted in the height), the tower, named 15 Penn Plaza, would be a formidable visual rival from afar and on postcards.

Hence Mr. Malkin's apprehension.

Mr. Malkin, the scion of a four-generation real estate empire, is not one to bite his tongue. He got into a public spat with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in June when he refused to honor Mother Teresa by lighting the Empire State Building for what would be her 100th birthday. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal quoted him as calling green-design standards "bullshit" for being too lax. And, in 2007, with landlord Douglas Durst, he took out newspaper ads that publicly criticized the state for building the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center, a move akin to a campaign his grandfather Lawrence Wein led with Mr. Durst's father when the original twin towers were planned (those towers bested the Empire State Building as the city's tallest).

He first came to be involved with 15 Penn Plaza when Vornado began shepherding the plans for the tower through the city's seven-month-long public-approval process, which concludes with the vote by the City Council this month. The size of the tower caught him off-guard, he said. He began to round up consultants and push for changes, including at the City Planning Commission, given that such a building so close by would significantly change the skyline.

"We're not talking about preventing tall buildings in New York," Mr. Malkin said. "The question here is this tall building here in New York, being approximately 800, 900 feet away from the Empire State Building, crowding the distinctive skyline of the city."

He is no fan of the design—he likened it to "an undersea ICBM"—and sees a decision on the tower as a historic one, saying it is "akin to the loss of Penn Station."

As for what's driving Mr. Malkin, it seems to be a transparent self-interest. He views himself as a guardian of his building's place in the skyline, and, as such, he is protective of anything that might encroach on that. If there are financial motivations-and Mr. Malkin says there are not-they are not obvious (although he has raised concerns that the new skyscraper would interfere with his building's radio tower). The Vornado tower and the Empire State Building would compete for two different types of tenants; namely, those willing to pay high rents for modern space at the Vornado tower (banks and the like), and those who can't. Tenants at the Empire State Building include the FDIC and nonprofits like Human Rights Watch, for instance.

CAMPAIGNS AGAINST MAJOR towers are ingrained in the history of New York, of course, but rarely are they led—or even participated in—by major landlords. Typically, it is the local residents who put landlords on the defensive, often using many of the same tactics as Mr. Malkin (appealing to civic groups; faulting the environmental review; making renderings to illustrate a proposed building's effects). But unlike the typical Upper West Side renter concerned about a new condo tower across the street, he has a bit more of a platform on which to stand.

Further, Mr. Malkin's argument is not without precedent, at least if one is to look at the model set by the Bloomberg administration last year, when the City Planning Commission chopped 200 feet off the height of the 1,250-foot-tall, Jean Nouvel-designed tower next to MoMA. The reasoning, from the Planning Commission, was that the design for the tower's top was not shown to merit "being in the zone of the Empire State Building's iconic spire."

"It's hard to understand how City Planning could say that 15 Penn Plaza would have no impact on the Empire State Building when they already lowered a proposed 53rd Street building for that very reason," said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, who added that her group does not oppose development on the Hotel Pennsylvania. "We would urge the Council to look at the discretionary waivers and bonuses this proposal has received."

The local community board has been critical of the Vornado plan, and opposed it on a number of grounds. And the powerful hotel workers' union has been concerned with the plans for the tower, given that it would involve shuttering the giant Hotel Pennsylvania.

Of course, this is all coming quite late in the process, so much so that it's hard to see how it would have much of an effect, especially when the tower has received support from some civic groups and the borough president. The clock is ticking, with the City Council vote scheduled for next week, and strong opposition mo
vements take time, particularly when heated opposition did not form sooner in the process.

And Mr. Malkin's earlier tiff with Ms. Quinn, the Council speaker, over Mother Teresa's birthday can't help, as the tower sits in her district.

That said, the proposed tower may, in the end, simply prove to be theoretical. Vornado is by no means ready to demolish the Hotel Pennsylvania, a property that, despite its less-than-rave reviews, was minting cash for the company when room rates were high in 2007 and 2008.

Further, Vornado has said it is only moving ahead with the rezoning now to have the option for building the tower at some later date, if and when it finds an anchor tenant. The firm declined to comment on Mr. Malkin's criticism.

ebrown@observer.com

Mr. Ward plans to be gone May 25 through 31 on the trip, said the spokesman, Stephen Sigmund, and plans to travel to London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

The purpose appears to be to start generating interest globally for the tower, which is being positioned as a would-be home for offices of international firms. Mr. Ward is traveling with Tara Stacom, vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield, the brokerage that is the leasing and marketing agent for the tower, Mr. Sigmund said.

However, the tour comes at something of an unusual time, given that the Port Authority is in the midst of a contest to sell a stake in the building to one of three major developers who, presumably, would be charged with going on trips like this one. The agency has sought to bring in the private investor with the hope that the landlord would take the lead in marketing the tower, given that these landlords are presumed by major tenants to be more qualified at leasing than the Port Authority, a transportation-focused public agency.

ebrown@observer.com

In any event, here are some name suggestions for the new tower:

• Si Town
• Graydon Gardens
• Wintour Palace OR Wintour Wonderland
• Si's New House
• Vanity Lair
• (Maurie) Perl Harbor
• The Si-Lo
• Condé Nest
• Reddit Refuge
• Si-Scraper

Feel free to offer more suggestions and we'll add them throughout the day! jkoblin [at] observer.com

“Why, now, is the government planning to pay for the construction of an overly expensive design to be occupied by government agencies at overly expensive rents, all at the expense of taxpayers’ money which could be put to better uses?” asked the letter, signed by Mr. Durst and Anthony Malkin, an owner of the Empire State Building. “The Freedom Tower, at a cost of $2.4 billion, is far too important an undertaking to be mired in inefficient planning, hasty design, or occupancy by government agencies paying submarket rents.”

Mr. Durst has had a change in heart.

With the tower now more than 200 feet off the ground, he is one of four bidders vying to buy a stake of the building from the Port Authority, which is developing the tower, since renamed One World Trade Center. With a desire to have a real developer as the public face of the building, and with the appeal of some cash, the Port Authority is choosing between Mr. Durst’s the Durst Organization, Mort Zuckerman’s Boston Properties, Stephen Ross’ Related Companies and Hines Interests, each of which have offered about $100 million for a non-traditional equity stake in the tower.

Perhaps Mr. Durst no longer thinks the giant new tower will flood the market with too much space. Perhaps he’s come around to love a design he criticized. Perhaps he’s changed his sour views on using government tenants to prop up the tower and pay more than they normally would.

Or maybe he just smells a good offer at a time when prices are low, and any allegations of a double standard are far outweighed by the appeal of the deal.

After all, while Mr. Durst is comfortably seated in his new, full and wildly successful Bank of America tower, across from Bryant Park, many of his colleagues in the industry are cash-poor and busy shuttling among angry lenders seeking to reclaim their buildings.

“Timing is everything in real estate, and we think now is the time for One World Trade Center,” said Mr. Durst, who followed in father Seymour’s footsteps to oppose construction of the World Trade Center. “It is going to be the only new building downtown and possibly the only new building in the city at the time.”

Plus, why engage in futile opposition when a good deal awaits?

“The building is going to go ahead no matter what anybody says,” he said. “Similarly with the Times Square redevelopment project, we bitterly opposed that, but once the decision was made to go forward, we were a part of it.”

“That is,” he added with a facetious tone, “in the past we’ve been against something before we were for it.

ebrown@observer.com

One clear morning last week, an American flag rose above the expanse of scaffolding and steel that stretches across the World Trade Center construction site. With it rose a somewhat less iconic marker in the national consciousness: the green and yellow logo of the Subway sandwich chain. The yellow shipping container and soon-to-be sub shop bearing the twin emblems was hoisted by crane to its temporary fifth-floor home. The fast-food restaurant will continue to climb as each successive floor is laid.

Perched atop 1 World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower, hundreds of steelworkers are being propelled skyward at the rate of a floor every one to two weeks. Amid engineering marvels and feats of technical ingenuity, it is lunch hour that presents the workers with an insoluble quandary. As the tower grows ever taller, a lunch hour jaunt to the sandwich shop down the street could fast become an arduous 45-minute journey each way, far exceeding the 30 minutes allotted workers for break.

Subway stepped in following a round of bidding in which it was the only eatery to forgo a guarantee of profit. Subcontracted by DCM Erectors, the steel company working on the site, the franchise agreed to undertake the enterprise at cost. DCM will subsidize any loss to Subway, which, as a kind of vertically propelled billboard, will also garner some unrivaled advertising from the arrangement.

Comprised of three stacked levels and a total of nine containers, the restaurant will feature all its usual amenities (kitchen for baking bread, eating area, restrooms) and a few distinctive ones (a particularly ambitious composting unit, for instance, which will limit the need for vertical treks of waste disposal). The restaurant, set to open by the end of January, will veer slightly from its standard fare of footlong heroes, adding New York staples such as hot dogs and pretzels to the menu.

Tower 1 will eventually hit 105 stories, becoming the highest point in the city. And, for a while at least, Subway will share the distinction. Just 100 more stories to go.

egeminder@observer.com

The collapse of the deal further strains the finances of the Port Authority at the Lower Manhattan site, as a basic agreement struck with the MTVA in 2003 called for an annual rent of about $10 million, on top of a $20 million payment to build the antenna. The Port Authority owns the site and is building the Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed Freedom Tower, known officially as 1 World Trade Center.

The agency is now considering whether to build a less costly antenna—the price was north of $20 million—with the hopes of striking a new deal later on, or to build a spire that has an aesthetic function alone. Antenna deal or not, the agency still plans for a spire atop the $3.1 billion tower to bring the building to its symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

“This continues to be part of the design,” Stephen Sigmund, a Port Authority spokesman, said of the 408-foot spire. 

The formation of the MTVA, along with the plan to put an antenna atop the skyscraper, came after numerous stations went black following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the city’s main television broadcast antenna went down with World Trade Center Tower 1.

Read the rest.

The collapse of the deal further strains the finances of the Port Authority at the Lower Manhattan site, as a basic agreement struck with the MTVA in 2003 called for an annual rent of about $10 million, on top of a $20 million payment to build the antenna. The Port Authority owns the site and is building the Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed Freedom Tower, known officially as 1 World Trade Center.

The agency is now considering whether to build a less costly antenna—the price was north of $20 million—with the hopes of striking a new deal later on, or to build a spire that has an aesthetic function alone. Antenna deal or not, the agency still plans for a spire atop the $3.1 billion tower to bring the building to its symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

“This continues to be part of the design,” Stephen Sigmund, a Port Authority spokesman, said of the 408-foot spire. 

The formation of the MTVA, along with the plan to put an antenna atop the skyscraper, came after numerous stations went black following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the city’s main television broadcast antenna went down with World Trade Center Tower 1.

Since, technological changes in the industry—including a switch from analog to digital broadcasting—have lessened the need for a new major antenna in Lower Manhattan. Already, there are two buildings where owners say they can accommodate all the television broadcasters in the city on their antennas: Wien & Malkin’s Empire State Building and the Durst Organization’s 4 Times Square.

“We’ve got a tremendously robust system,” said Tony Malkin, president of Wien & Malkin. “Every single broadcaster will be supported.”

“We are open and ready for business—plug and play,” said Jordan Barowitz, a Durst spokesman.

Still, the MTVA’s president, Saul Shapiro, said that there are technical benefits of having an antenna at the World Trade Center, and the group is still in talks with the Port Authority for a deal of some sort. “We have not ruled out going to the Freedom Tower,” he said, declining to comment on specifics about the discussions.

However he did acknowledge that some MTVA member stations have pushed back against a new downtown antenna, in part due to the large investment needed.

“Some of the members have different finances, and are looking at broadcast in a different way going forward,” he said. “Locating at 1 World Trade was not the ideal solution for all the members.”

ebrown@observer.com