Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet (381 meters), and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft (443.2 m) high.Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State. It stood as the world's tallest building for 40 years, from its completion in 1931 until construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower was completed in 1972. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York (although it was no longer the tallest in the US or the world). The Empire State Building was once again demoted to second tallest building in New York on April 30, 2012, when the new One World Trade Center reached a greater height. The Empire State Building is currently the third tallest completed skyscraper in the United States (after the Willis Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower, both in Chicago), and the 15th tallest in the world (The tallest now is Burj Khalifa, located in Dubai). It is also the fourth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas.
The Empire State Building is generally thought of as an American cultural icon. It is designed in the distinctive Art Deco style and has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and confirmed by the New York City Board of Estimate.It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.In 2007, it was ranked number one on the List of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.
The building is owned and managed by W&H Properties.The Empire State Building is currently undergoing a $550 million renovation, with $120 million spent in an effort to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure. Receiving a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating in September 2011, the Empire State Building is the tallest LEED certified building in the United States.

History

The site of the Empire State Building was first developed as the John Thompson Farm in the late 18th century.At the time, a stream ran across the site, emptying into Sunfish Pond, located a block away. Beginning in the late 19th century the block was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York.

Design and construction

The Empire State Building was designed by William F. Lamb from the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, which produced the building drawings in just two weeks, using its earlier designs for the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the Carew Tower in Cincinnati, Ohio (designed by the architectural firm W. W. Ahlschlager & Associates) as a basis. Every year the staff of the Empire State Building sends a Father's Day card to the staff at the Reynolds Building in Winston-Salem to pay homage to its role as predecessor to the Empire State Building.The building was designed from the top down. The general contractors were The Starrett Brothers and Eken, and the project was financed primarily by John J. Raskob and Pierre S. du Pont. The construction company was chaired by Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and James Farley's General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials. John W. Bowser was project construction superintendent.
Excavation of the site began on January 22, 1930, and construction on the building itself started symbolically on March 17—St. Patrick's Day—per Al Smith's influence as Empire State, Inc. president. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, many from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction.Governor Smith's grandchildren cut the ribbon on May 1, 1931. Lewis Wickes Hine's photography of the construction provides not only invaluable documentation of the construction, but also a glimpse into common day life of workers in that era.
The construction was part of an intense competition in New York for the title of "world's tallest building". Two other projects fighting for the title, 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, were still under construction when work began on the Empire State Building. Each held the title for less than a year, as the Empire State Building surpassed them upon its completion, just 410 days after construction commenced. The project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget. Instead of taking 18 months as anticipated, the construction took just under fifteen. Due to reduced costs during the Depression, the final costs totaled only $24.7 million (372.8 million 2012 dollars) instead of the estimated $43 million. The building was officially opened on May 1, 1931 in dramatic fashion, when United States President Herbert Hoover turned on the building's lights with the push of a button from Washington, D.C. Coincidentally, the first use of tower lights atop the Empire State Building, the following year, was for the purpose of signaling the victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt over Hoover in the presidential election of November 1932.

Bank of America Tower

Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park is a 1,200 ft (366 m) skyscraper in the Midtown district of Manhattan in New York City, in the United States. It is located on Sixth Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Street, opposite Bryant Park.
The US$1 billion project was designed by Cook+Fox Architects to be one of the most efficient and ecologically friendly buildings in the world. It is the third tallest building in New York City, after One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building, and the fifth tallest building in the United States. Construction was completed in 2009.
In October 2009 the building featured on episode 100 of the National Geographic Channel television series MegaStructures.
In June 2010, the Bank of America Tower was the recipient of the 2010 Best Tall Building Americas award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Details

The tower from street level

The tower's architectural spire is 255.5 ft (77.9 m) tall and was placed on December 15, 2007. The building is 55 stories high and contains 2,100,000 square feet (195,096 m²) of office space, three escalators and a total of 52 elevators manufactured by Schindler Group – 50 to serve the offices and one leading to the transit mezzanine below ground.Several buildings were demolished to make way for the tower. Among them was the Hotel Diplomat, a 13-story structure which occupied the site at 108 West 43rd Street since 1911, and Henry Miller's Theatre, which was rebuilt and reopened under its previous location. The building's tenants include Bank of America as the anchor tenant, and the tower's platinum LEED rating and modern column-free office space has helped to entice tenants from all over the city. The Bank of America Tower is considered a worldwide model for green architecture in skyscrapers.

Height

When comparing building height, only the structural height is used according to rules and regulations of the World Council on Tall Buildings. Currently, the New York Times Building and the Chrysler Building are tied for the position of the third tallest buildings in New York City. With the architectural spireincluded, the structural height of the Bank of America Tower is 1,200 ft (370 m), making it the second tallest building in New York City (after the Empire State Building).

Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At 1,046 feet (319 m),the structure was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is still the tallest brick building in the world, albeit with an internal steel skeleton. After the destruction of the World Trade Center, it was again the second-tallest building in New York City until December 2007, when the spire was raised on the 1,200-foot (365.8 m) Bank of America Tower, pushing the Chrysler Building into third position. In addition, The New York Times Building, which opened in 2007, is exactly level with the Chrysler Building in height. Both buildings were then pushed into 4th position, when the under construction One World Trade Center surpassed their height.
The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.It was the headquarters of the Chrysler Corporation from 1930 until the mid-1950s, but, although the building was built and designed specifically for the car manufacturer, the corporation did not pay for the construction of it and never owned it, as Walter P. Chrysler decided to pay for it himself, so that his children could inherit it.

History

The Chrysler Building was designed by architect William Van Alen for a project of Walter P. Chrysler.When the ground breaking occurred on September 19, 1928, there was an intense competition in New York City to build the world's tallest skyscraper. Despite a frantic pace (the building was built at an average rate of four floors per week), no workers died during the construction of this skyscraper.

Construction

Construction commenced on September 19, 1928.In total, almost 400,000 rivets were used and approximately 3,826,000 bricks were manually laid, to create the non-loadbearing walls of the skyscraper. Contractors, builders and engineers were joined by other building-services experts to coordinate construction.
Prior to its completion, the building stood about even with a rival project at 40 Wall Street, designed by H. Craig Severance. Severance increased the height of his project and then publicly claimed the title of the world's tallest building(this distinction excluded structures that were not fully habitable, such as the Eiffel Tower). In response, Van Alen obtained permission for a 38-meter (125 ft) long spire and had it secretly constructed inside the frame of the building. The spire was delivered to the site in four different sections. On October 23, 1929, the bottom section of the spire was hoisted onto the top of the building's dome and lowered into the 66th floor of the building. The other remaining sections of the spire were hoisted and riveted to the first one in sequential order in just 90 minutes.

Architecture

The Chrysler Building is considered a leading example of Art Deco architecture. The corners of the 61st floor are graced with eagles ; on the 31st floor, the corner ornamentation are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps. The building is constructed of masonry, with a steel frame, and metal cladding. In total, the building currently contains 3,862 windows on its facade and 4 banks of 8 elevators designed by the Otis Elevator Corporation.The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

The New York Times Building

The New York Times Building is a skyscraper on the west side of Midtown Manhattan that was completed in 2007. Its chief tenant is The New York Times Company, publisher of The New York Times as well as The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, and other newspapers. Construction was a joint venture of The New York Times Company, Forest City Ratner Companies—the Cleveland-based real estate firm redeveloping the Brooklyn Atlantic rail yards—and ING Real Estate.

Planning and development

The project was announced on December 13, 2001, entailing the erection of a 52-story tower on the east side of Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Street across from the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Bus Terminal. The project was announced shortly after the Hearst Corporation was given approval to construct a tower over their landmark six-story headquarters along the west side of Eighth Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets. In conjunction with the Hearst Tower, the site selection represents the further westward expansion of Midtown along Eighth Avenue; a corridor that had seen no construction following the completion in 1989 of One Worldwide Plaza.
In addition, the new location keeps the paper in the Times Square area, which was named after the paper following its move to 42nd Street in 1904. The New York Times Company had most recently been located at 229 West 43rd Street.
The site for the building was obtained by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) through eminent domain. With a mandate to acquire and redevelop blighted properties in Times Square, ten existing buildings were condemned by the ESDC and purchased from owners who in some cases did not want to sell, asserting that the area was no longer blighted (thanks in part to the earlier efforts of the ESDC). The ESDC, however, prevailed in the courts.
Once the 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m²) site was assembled, it was leased to The New York Times Company and Forest City Ratner for $85.6 million over 99 years (considerably below market value).Additionally, The New York Times Company received $26.1 million in tax breaks.

Design

The tower was designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and FXFOWLE Architects, with Gensler providing interior design. The lighting design for the building's nighttime identity was designed by the Office for Visual Interaction Inc.
The tower rises 748 feet (228 m) from the street to its roof, with the exterior curtain wall extending 92 feet (28 m) higher to 840 feet (260 m), and a mast rising to 1,046 feet (319 m). As of 2008, the building is tied with the Chrysler Building as the fourth tallest building in New York City, due to the unfinished One World Trade Center exceeding their height. The tower is also the seventh tallest building in the United States.
The steel-framed building, cruciform in plan, utilizes a screen of 1 ⁵⁄₈" (41.3 mm) ceramic rods mounted on the exterior of the glass curtain wall on the east, west and south facades. The rod spacing increases from the base to the top, providing greater transparency as the building rises. The steel framing and bracing is exposed at the four corner "notches" of the building.

Sustainability

The building is promoted as a Green structure, though it is not LEED certified.
The design incorporates many features for increased energy efficiency. The curtain wall, fully glazed with low-e glass, maximizes natural light within the building while the ceramic-rod screen helps block direct sunlight and reduce cooling loads. Mechanized shades controlled by sensors reduce glare, while more than 18,000 individually-dimmable fluorescent fixtures supplement natural light, providing a real energy savings of 30 percent.
A natural gas cogeneration plant provides 40 percent of the electrical power to The New York Times Company' space within the building, with the waste heat used for heating and cooling. Floors occupied by The New York Times Company utilize a raised floor system that allows for underfloor air distribution, which requires less cooling than a conventional ducted system. The building also incorporates free-air cooling, bringing in outside air when it is cooler than the interior space, which saves additional energy.In excess of 95% of the structural steel was recycled.
The building, like many in midtown Manhattan, has no on-site parking, with most employees arriving by public transit. Since December 2007, building management has provided an indoor parking area for 20 bicycles.
The story of the tower's construction is showcased at the Liberty Science Center's exhibition "Skyscraper! Achievement and Impact".

Four World Trade Center

Four World Trade Center (also known by its street address, 150 Greenwich Street) is a skyscraper under construction as part of the new World Trade Center complex in New York City. It is located on the southeast corner of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, where the original nine-story 4 World Trade Center stood. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki was awarded the contract to design the building, which will be 974 feet (288 m) tall. As of right now it is the second tallest skyscraper on the rebuilt World Trade Center site behind One World Trade Center, although Two World Trade Center and Three World Trade Center are planned to surpass the building's height upon completion. The total floor space of the building is anticipated to include 1.8 million square feet (167,000 square meter) of office and retail space. The building's groundbreaking took place in January 2008, and it is scheduled to be completed by 2013. The structural engineer for the building is Leslie E. Robertson Associates, New York City.

1975-2001

The original 4 World Trade Center was a 9-story low-rise office building completed in 1975 that was 118 ft (36 m) tall and in the southeast corner of the site, in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The building's major tenants were Deutsche Bank (Floor 4, 5, and 6) and the New York Board of Trade (Floors 7, 8, and 9). The building's side facing Liberty Street housed the entrance to The Mall at the World Trade Center on the Concourse level of the WTC. It was damaged beyond repair as a result of the September 11 attacks and was later demolished to make way for the construction of the new skyscrapers, Four World Trade Center and Three World Trade Center. 4 World Trade Center was home to five commodities exchanges on what was at the time one of the world's largest trading floors (featured in the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places). The new Four World Trade Center and Three World Trade Center will stand where 4 World Trade Center formerly stood.

Construction

Groundbreaking took place in 2008. The building reached street level in November 2009. The safety cocoon was installed December 2010. The first glass was installed May 2011. In November 2010, three PureCell fuel cells were delivered at the World Trade Center site which together will provide about 30% of the tower’s power.
On February 16, 2012, one of the building's construction crane cables snapped while lifting steel, causing the steel to fall 40 stories from the building, landing on a flat bed truck. No injuries were reported. Construction on the building eventually resumed after the accident.
Four World Trade Center was topped out on June 25, 2012.
As of August 17, 2012, the progress and the list of construction activities at the 4 World Trade Center site include

• Steel is now topped out at floor 72, with only upper mechanical and roof bulkhead construction remaining
• Curtain wall installation began in late April 2011 and is now above floor 58
• Utility work along Liberty Street (inside the work site fence line) is active in late July through August 2012
• Fireproofing and masonry, below-grade mechanical work, elevator shaft work are underway
• Two cranes are now active at the site

Citigroup Center

The Citigroup Center (formerly Citicorp Center and now known as 601 Lexington Avenue) is one of the ten tallest skyscrapers in New York City, United States, located at 53rd Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The 59-floor, 915-foot (279-m) building contains 1.3 million square feet (120,000 m²) of office space, and is one of the most distinctive and imposing in New York's skyline, thanks to a 45° angled top and a unique stilt-style base. It was designed by architect Hugh Stubbins Jr. and structural engineer William LeMessurier for Citibank, and was completed in 1977. The building is currently owned by Boston Properties, and in 2009, was renamed 601 Lexington Avenue.

History

The northwest corner of the site was originally occupied by St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church which was founded in 1862. In 1905, the church moved to the location of 54th Street and Lexington Avenue.
From the beginning, the Citigroup Center was an engineering challenge. When planning for the skyscraper began in the early 1970s, the northwest corner of the proposed building site was occupied by St. Peter's Lutheran Church. The church allowed Citicorp to demolish the old church and build the skyscraper under one condition: a new church would have to be built on the same corner, with no connection to the Citicorp building and no columns passing through it, because the church wanted to remain on the site of the new development, near one of the intersections. Architects wondered at the time if this demand was too much and would make the proposal unfeasible.

Structural engineer William LeMessurier set the 59-story tower on four massive 114-foot (35-m)-high columns, positioned at the center of each side, rather than at the corners. This design allowed the northwest corner of the building to cantilever 72 feet (22 m) over the new church. To accomplish these goals LeMessurier designed a system of stacked load-bearing braces, in the form of inverted chevrons. Each chevron would redirect the massive loads to their center, then downward into the ground through the uniquely positioned columns.

8 Spruce Street

8 Spruce Street, originally known as Beekman Tower and currently marketed as New York by Gehry, is a 76-story skyscraper designed by architect Frank Gehry in the New York City borough of Manhattan at 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan, just south of City Hall Plaza and the Brooklyn Bridge.
According to official website, reaching 265 meters (870-feet) high, New York by Gehry is the 11th tallest residential tower in the world and the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere as of date 2011. The tower contains only rental units (898 in total), something of a rarity in New York’s Financial District and somewhat resembles Aqua, a Chicago skyscraper, in height and form. The building was developed by Forest City Ratner, designed by Frank Gehry Architects, WSP Cantor Seinuk Structural Engineers and constructed by Kreisler Borg Florman. It contains a public elementary school, which the Department of Education owns. It opened in February 2011. Its structural frame is made of reinforced concrete.

Public elementary school

The school is sheathed reddish-tan brick, and covers 100,000 square feet (9,300 m²) of the first five floors of the building. It will host over 600 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade classes. A fourth floor roof deck will hold 5,000 square feet (460 m²) of outdoor play space.

Luxury rentals

Above the elementary school is an 898 unit luxury residential tower clad in stainless steel. The apartments range from 500 to 1,600 square feet (150 m²), and consist of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. All units are priced at market-rate, with no low or moderate income-restricted apartments.It does not contain any units for purchase.

Trump World Tower

Trump World Tower is a residential skyscraper at 845 United Nations Plaza (First Avenue between 47th and 48th Streets) in Manhattan, New York City. Construction began in 1999 and concluded in 2001. Designed by the Polish architect Costas Kondylis, the building is 861 feet high and has 72 constructed floors (but lists 90 stories on elevator panels) with curtain wall facades of dark, bronze-tinted glass.The resulting large windows allow for extensive views of the East River and midtown Manhattan. The building is constructed with concrete to improve its wind resistance.
Trump World Tower was the tallest all-residential tower in the world briefly, prior to the completion of the 21st Century Tower in Dubai (2003) and the Tower Palace 3 in Seoul (2004).
Prior to construction, many neighbors, including Walter Cronkite, opposed the building due to its height and lack of distinguishing exterior features.Among the concerns was that this tower would dwarf the United Nations headquarters across the street. Trump World Tower was constructed as-of-right on the former site of the United Engineering Center through the acquisition of unused air rights from adjacent properties.
The tallest of the handful of wholly residential towers completed to-date by Donald Trump, it cost approximately $300 million to construct. Condo prices have relaxed to between $625,000 for a studio (there are only a small handful in the building) to $28,000,000+. The penthouse on the top 2 floors of the structure which totaled 20,000 square feet (1,858 m²) was priced at $58 million; however, after failing to sell for years, it was separated into four different units. Rentals from private owners are currently between $2800 and $3700 for studio units and $4600+ for 1 bedroom units (590-890 square feet).

In April 2006, Megu, an Asian fusion cuisine restaurant, opened on the ground floor, which also houses a bar named The World Bar.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza

One Chase Manhattan Plaza is a banking skyscraper located in the downtown Manhattan Financial District of New York City, between Pine, Liberty, Nassau, and William Streets. Construction on the building was completed in 1961. It has 60 floors, with 5 basement floors, and is 248 meters (813 ft) tall, making it the 11th tallest building in New York City, the 43rd tallest in the United States, and the 200th tallest building in the world.
The building is built in the International style, with a white steel facade with black patterns just below the windows. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the building echoes the Inland Steel Building in Chicago.
A direct entrance to the Wall Street station (2 3 trains) of the New York City Subway is in the lobby.

History

The Chase Manhattan Bank president of that time, David Rockefeller, the current patriarch of the Rockefeller family, was the prime mover of the construction and the building's location, notably because many corporations had moved uptown, and the Financial District had languished as a result. One Chase Manhattan Plaza is currently occupied by the successor to the "Rockefeller Bank", JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Originally, its major tenants included the white shoe firms Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy (then the bank's main outside counsel), Davis Polk & Wardwell and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Davis Polk and Cravath moved to Midtown in the eighties, but Milbank remains.
"The building is an enormous steel-framed rectangle, 813 feet (248 m) high, containing about 1,800,000 square feet (170,000 m²) above ground level, with another 600,000 square feet (55,742 m²) below grade for a truck entrance, mechanical equipment rooms, vaults, a branch bank, and a cafeteria. On the facade are anodized aluminum panels, mullions, and column cladding. Aluminum was chosen because it was cheaper than stainless steel, and the manufacturer offered a long performance guarantee. The columns, nearly 3 x 5 feet (0.9 x 1.5 m) in size, stand 29 feet (8.8 m) apart on the long axis and project from the long façades of the building; on the short sides, floors are cantilevered beyond the columns."
"...When seen from a distance, the bank looks bulky among the slender towers of pre- Depression skyscrapers. Its surface can also appear obtrusive because the earlier building surfaces of brick and stone absorb light while Chase's aluminum and glass reflect it. Seen from ground level, especially from its principal plaza, the building is a commanding presence."Chase's tall rectangle is asymmetrical in plan, with the elevator and service core shifted off center to allow a 45-foot (14 m) wide clerical pool on the south and individual offices and a corridor 29 feet (8.8 m) wide on the north. These broad spaces are uninterrupted by columns, adding to the cost but producing about 6 percent more continuous space for desks."

Condé Nast Building

The Condé Nast Building, officially 4 Times Square, is a modern skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. Located on Broadway between 42nd Street and 43rd, the structure was finished in January 2000 as part of a larger project to redevelop 42nd Street. The building stretches 48 stories to 809 ft (247 m) making it the 12th tallest building in New York City and the 41st tallest in the United States. The size of the tower raised concerns from the city about what impact this sized tower would have on Times Square. The major office space tenants are magazine publishing company Condé Nast and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a prominent U.S. law firm. Duane Reade is a major retail tenant.
4 Times Square is owned by The Durst Organization. The architects were Fox & Fowle who also designed the Reuters Building as part of the larger project. The building contains 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m²) of floor space. In 1995, 4 Times Square was the first speculative office building to be developed in New York City in almost a decade, but it was fully leased and occupied almost immediately after completion.The City Hall chose Fox & Fowle architectural firm to design the building because they were known as the designers of ecologically sustainable buildings.
NASDAQ's MarketSite is located at the northwest corner of the building. It is a seven-story cylindrical tower with a high-tech electronic display, providing market quotes, financial news and advertisements. The ground floor of the MarketSite contains a television studio with a wall of monitors and an arc of windows looking out onto Times Square. Including the antenna, its height is 1,143 ft (348 m), making it the fourth-tallest structure in New York City, behind the Freedom Tower, Empire State Building and the Bank of America Tower.

MetLife Building

The MetLife Building is a skyscraper located at 200 Park Avenue at East 45th Street above Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, was built in 1958-63 as the Pan Am Building, the headquarters of Pan American World Airways. It was designed by Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi and Walter Gropius in the International style, and is one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States.

History

When it opened on March 7, 1963 the Pan Am Building (as it was known at the time) was the largest commercial office space in the world. It faced huge initial unpopularity, being described as an "ugly behemoth", due to its lack of proportion and huge scale—it dwarfed the New York Central Building to the north and the Grand Central Terminal to the south.

The last tall tower erected in New York City before laws were enacted preventing corporate logos and names on the tops of buildings, it bore 15' tall "Pan Am" displays on its north and south faces and 25' tall globe logos east and west.
Pan Am originally occupied 15 floors of the building. It remained Pan Am's headquarters even after Metropolitan Life Insurance Company bought the building in 1981. By 1991 Pan Am's presence had dwindled to four floors; during that year Pan Am moved its headquarters to Miami. Shortly afterwards the airline ceased operations. On Thursday September 3, 1992, MetLife announced that it would remove Pan Am signage from the building. Robert G. Schwartz, the chairman, chief executive, and president of MetLife, said that the company decided to remove the Pan Am sign since Pan Am ceased operations. At the time MetLife was headquartered in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower.
In 2005, MetLife sold the building for $1.72 billion, the record price at the time for an office building in the U.S. The buyer was a joint venture of Tishman Speyer Properties, the New York City Employees' Retirement System, and the New York City Teachers' Retirement System.

Helicopter service

The building previously had helicopter service to Pan Am's terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, a 7-to-10-minute flight from the rooftop helipad. The New York Airways Vertol 107 flights lasted from December 21, 1965, to February 18, 1968; Sikorsky S-61 flights operated for a few months in 1977, ending after an accident atop the building killed five people.
On May 16, 1977, about one minute after a Sikorsky S-61L landed and its 20 passengers disembarked, the right front landing gear collapsed, causing the aircraft to topple onto its side with the rotors still turning. One of the five 20-foot blades broke off and flew into a crowd of passengers waiting to board. Three men, including film director Michael Findlay, were killed instantly and another man died later in a hospital. The blade sailed over the side of the building and killed a pedestrian on the corner of Madison Avenue and 43rd Street. Two other people were seriously injured.

Architecture

Designed by Emery Roth & Sons with the assistance of Walter Gropius and Pietro Belluschi, the Pan Am Building is an example of an International style skyscraper. It is purely commercial in design with large floors, simple massing, with an absence of ornamentation inside and out. It has been popular with tenants, not least because of its location next to Grand Central Terminal.
In 1987, the lifestyle periodical New York revealed in a poll that MetLife—then Pan Am—was the building that New Yorkers would most like to see demolished. Perhaps contributing to the hatred of the building is the fact that it is so visible. Situated behind Grand Central Terminal outside of the grid, the building, which would have otherwise been tucked away into the city, is left totally exposed and contrasted with the other buildings around it, most notably the New York Central Building, which is now called the Helmsley Building. Today the building is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers in the City.

Bloomberg Tower

Bloomberg Tower is a 1,400,000 sq ft (130,000 m²) glass skyscraper on the East Side of Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It houses the headquarters of Bloomberg L.P., retail outlets, restaurants and 105 luxury condominiums. The residences are known as One Beacon Court and are served by a separate entrance. The tower is the 15th tallest building in New York City and the 46th tallest in the United States. It stands at 55 stories tall, reaching 806 ft (246 m).
Located at 731 Lexington Avenue, the building occupies the same block where Alexander's department store once stood. It opened in 2004.

Construction and design

Construction on Bloomberg Tower began in 2001, three years after the vacant Alexander's department store was demolished.The building was developed by Vornado Realty Trust and César Pelli & Associates served as the design architect.
The building comprises a full city block between Lexington and Third avenues and 58th and 59th streets. The complex features two towers constructed above a steel office and retail section, separated by a seven-story atrium.The design of the courtyard at One Beacon Court, which connects 58th and 59th streets, was inspired by other historic New York enclosures, like Grand Central Station, the reading room of the New York Public Library and the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Glass walls curve around the perimeter of the courtyard, tilting slightly inward as they rise.

Woolworth Building

The Woolworth Building, designed by architect Cass Gilbert in 1913, is one of the oldest skyscrapers in the United States. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty-tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty-tallest buildings in New York City. Since 1966 it has been a National Historic Landmark, and a New York City landmark since 1983.

Architecture

The Woolworth Building was constructed in neo-Gothic style by architect Cass Gilbert, who was commissioned by Frank Woolworth in 1910 to design the tallest building in the world as the Woolworth Company's new corporate headquarters on Broadway, between Park Place and Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan, opposite City Hall. Originally planned to be 625 feet (191 m) high, the building was eventually elevated to 792 feet (241 m).The construction cost was US$13.5 million and Woolworth paid all of it in cash. On completion, the Woolworth building overtook the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower as the world's-tallest building; it opened on April 24, 1913.
With a resemblance to European Gothic cathedrals, the structure was labeled the Cathedral of Commerce by the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman during the opening ceremony, although it was maligned by others due to its eclecticism.It remained the tallest building in the world until the construction of 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, also in New York City, in 1930; an observation deck on the 57th floor attracted visitors until 1945.
The building's tower, flush with the main frontage on Broadway, is raised on a block base with a narrow interior court for light. The exterior decoration was cast in limestone-colored, glazed architectural terra-cotta panels. Strongly articulated piers, carried—without interrupting cornices—right to the pyramidal cap, give the building its upward thrust. The Gothic detailing concentrated at the highly visible top is massively scaled, able to be read from the street level several hundred feet below.
Engineers Gunvald Aus and Kort Berle designed the steel frame, supported on massive caissons that penetrate to the bedrock. The high-speed elevators were innovative, and the building's high office-to-elevator ratio made the structure profitable.
The ornate, cruciform lobby, is "one of the most spectacular of the early 20th century in New York City". It is covered in Skyros veined marble, has a vaulted ceiling, mosaics, a stained-glass skylight and bronze furnishings. On the balconies of the mezzanine are the murals Labor and Commerce overlooking sculpted plaster caricatures that include Gilbert with a model of the building, Aus taking a girder's measurements, and Woolworth counting nickels. Woolworth's private office, revetted in marble in French Empire style, has been preserved.
The building's facade was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Ehrenkrantz Group, in which much of the terra-cotta was replaced with cast stone and a lot of the gothic ornaments were removed.

Time Warner Center

The Time Warner Center is a pair of interconnected mixed-use skyscrapers developed by AREA Property Partners (formerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors) and The Related Companies in New York City. Its design, by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, consists of two 750 ft (229 m) twin towers bridged by a multi-story atrium containing upscale retail shops. Construction began in November 2000, following the demolition of the New York Coliseum, and a topping-out ceremony was held on February 27, 2003. The property had the highest-listed market value in New York City, $1.1 billion, in 2006.
Originally constructed as the AOL Time Warner Center, the building encircles the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Midtown and the Upper West Side. The total floor area of 260,000 m² (2.8 million ft²) is divided between offices (notably the offices of Time Warner Inc. and an R&D Center for VMware), residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel. The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall located in a curving arcade at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store in the basement. The complex is also home to a 1,200 seat theater for Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as CNN studios, from where Anderson Cooper 360° and Piers Morgan Tonight among other shows, are broadcast live. CNN's Jeanne Moos, known for her offbeat "man on the street" reporting, frequently accosts her interview subjects just outside the building. In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center announced a partnership with XM Satellite Radio which gave XM studio space at Frederick P. Rose Hall to broadcast both daily jazz programming and special events such as an Artist Confidential show featuring Carlos Santana. As of August 2011, Jazz at Lincoln Center's The Allen Room is the former recording studio for Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show, Anderson. Anderson recorded there for only 1 season. It is now recorded at the CBS Broadcast Center in Studio 42 where the now defunct The Nate Berkus Show filmed.

Design and construction

Construction was delayed for nearly 15 years after Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties initially won a bidding contest to buy the property from the Coliseum's owners, the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Boston proposed to build two 63-story buildings to be designed by Moshe Safdie on the 4.5-acre (18,000 m²) Coliseum site in 1985. Unsuccessful competitors for the site included Donald Trump who proposed building a 137-story, 1600-foot (488 m) high building which would have been the world's tallest at the time.
Boston's winning bid was $455 million for the site. It was to be the headquarters of Salomon Brothers. The building ran into intense opposition (including most prominently Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) who were concerned it would cast a shadow on Central Park. In 1988 a court ruled that the building violated the city's own zoning ordinances. At about the same time, Salomon Brothers backed out.
A renegotiated deal called for the building to be 52 stories with Boston paying a lower price of $357 million for the site. David Childs was tapped to redesign the building.
The building still languished until 2000 when the Coliseum was finally demolished. The Center, which now has 55 floors, markets it as an 80-story building.
The Time Warner Center was the first major building to be completed in Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks, although it was already under construction in 2001. While some New Yorkers noted the uncanny resemblance of the Time Warner Center to the fallen Twin Towers, the building's developer disclaimed to the press any intentional similarity.The Sunshine Group was in charge of marketing the building. Sandie N. Tillotson bought the top floor of the then uncompleted north tower for $30 million shortly after the September 11 Attacks. It was a record for a condominium at the time.That sale would be eclipsed in 2003 when Mexican financier David Martinez paid $54.7 million for a penthouse condo, then a record for New York residential sales.
The building has several street addresses, including 10 Columbus Circle for offices, 25 Columbus Circle for the south tower that was named "One Central Park" and 80 Columbus Circle for The Residences at Mandarin Oriental. The address One Central Park West, meanwhile, belongs to the Trump International Hotel and Tower across the street, which is owned by Donald Trump. Upon the completion of the Time Warner Center, Trump made a "little joke" at the Time Warner Center’s expense by hanging a large sign on his building gloating, "Your views aren’t so great, are they? We have the real Central Park views and address."