Architecture of New York City


The building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, which has shifted many commercial and residential districts from low-rise to high-rise. Surrounded mostly by water, the city has amassed one of the largest and most varied collection of skyscrapers in the world.
New York has architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles spanning distinct historical and cultural periods. These include the Woolworth Building, an early Gothic revival skyscraper with large-scale gothic architectural detail. The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below. The Art Deco design of the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, with their tapered tops and steel spires, reflected the zoning requirements. The Chrysler building is considered by many historians and architects to be one of New York's finest, with its distinctive ornamentation such as V-shaped lighting inserts capped by a steel spire at the tower's crown. An early influential example of the international style in the United States is the Seagram Building, distinctive for its facade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building is an important example of green design in American skyscrapers.
The character of New York's large residential districts is often defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses, townhouses, and tenements that were built during a period of rapid expansion from 1870 to 1930. In contrast, New York City also has neighborhoods that are less densely populated and feature free-standing dwellings. In the outer boroughs, large single-family homes are common in various architectural styles such as Tudor Revival and Victorian. Split two-family homes are also widely available across the outer boroughs, for example in the Flushing area.
Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues. A distinctive feature of many of the city's buildings is the presence of wooden roof-mounted water towers. In the 19th century, the city required their installation on buildings higher than six stories to prevent the need for excessively high water pressures at lower elevations, which could burst municipal water pipes. Garden apartments became popular during the 1920s in outlying areas, including Jackson Heights in Queens, which became more accessible with expansion of the subway.

Concentrations of buildings

New York has two main concentrations of high-rise buildings: Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan, each with its own uniquely recognizable skyline. Midtown Manhattan, the largest central business district in the world, is home to such notable buildings as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Citigroup Center and Rockefeller Center. Lower Manhattan comprises the third largest central business district in the United States. Lower Manhattan was characterized by the omnipresence of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center from its completion in 1973 until its destruction in the September 11 attacks in 2001.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Lower Manhattan saw reconstruction to include the new One World Trade Center. The Downtown skyline received new designs from such architects as Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry. In 2010, a, 43-story tower named 200 West Street was built for Goldman Sachs across the street from the World Trade Center site.
New York City has a long history of tall buildings. It has been home to 10 buildings that have held the world's tallest fully habitable building title at some point in history, although half have since been demolished. The first building to bring the world's tallest title to New York was the New York World Building, in 1890. Later, New York City was home to the world's tallest building for 75 continuous years, starting with the Park Row Building in 1899 and ending with 1 World Trade Center upon completion of the Sears Tower in 1974. The 1899 Park Row Building, one of the world's earliest skyscrapers, is still standing.
The high-rise buildings of Brooklyn constitute a third, much smaller skyline. Downtown Brooklyn is also experiencing an extensive building boom, with new high rise luxury residential towers, commercial space and a new arena in the planning stages. The building boom in Brooklyn has had a great deal of opposition from local civic and environmental groups which contend that Brooklyn needs to maintain its human scale. The borough of Queens has also been developing its own skyline in recent years with One Court Square, and the Queens West development of several residential towers along the East River waterfront.
The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below.

Famous buildings

Early 20th century

Beaux-Arts

is located in East Midtown close to the Chrysler Building. The railroad terminal, completed in 1913, is the third on its site. It was built in the Beaux-Arts style by the firms Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Art Deco

The Empire State Building, a 102-story contemporary Art Deco style building in Midtown Manhattan, was designed by Shreve, Lamb and Harmon and finished in 1931. It was the world's tallest building for 42 years. The tower takes its name from the nickname of New York State. It was the first building to go beyond the 100-story mark, and has one of the world's most visited observation decks, which sees about 4 million visitors a year. The building was built in just 14 months.
Completed in 1930, the Chrysler Building is a distinctive symbol of New York, standing high in East Midtown, Manhattan. Originally built for the Chrysler Corporation, the building is presently co-owned by Aby Rosen's RFR Holding LLC, in a joint venture with the Austrian SIGNA Group. The Chrysler Building was the first structure in the world to surpass the 1,000 foot threshold.
30 Rockefeller Plaza is a slim Art Deco skyscraper and the focal point of Rockefeller Center. It stands 850 ft with 70 floors. Built in 1933 and originally called the RCA Building, it was later called the Comcast Building. The frieze above the main entrance was executed by Lee Lawrie and depicts Wisdom, along with a phrase from scripture that reads "Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times", originally found in the Book of Isaiah, 33:6.

International Style

The International Style was a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that completely changed the face of architecture in New York and the world. Mies Van Der Rohe, a focus of the show, later built the Seagram Building on Park Ave at 53rd Street. One of the most important buildings for modern architecture, the Seagram Building transformed its midtown site, the development of tall buildings, and the history of architecture. Other architects replicated details from Seagram within New York and around the world for decades following its completion in the late 1950s. The bronze extrusions attached to the mullions are exemplary of this trend in tall building design and can be seen in many cities.

Late 20th century

The MetLife Building, formerly the Pan Am Building, was the largest commercial office building in the world when it opened on March 7, 1963. It stands directly north of Grand Central Terminal.
The World Trade Center's twin towers were the city's tallest buildings from 1973 until their destruction in the September 11 attacks. The towers rose 1,368 feet and 1,362 feet respectively, both 110 floors. The North Tower's 360 foot antenna housed most of the city's communications, while the South Tower was home to a popular observation deck. They were the tallest buildings in the world until Chicago's 1,454-foot Sears Tower was completed in 1974.
Citigroup Center is a 59-story office tower located at 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It is considered one of the most important post-war skyscrapers to be in erected in New York City. The striking design of the steeply slanted roof, the sleek aluminum-clad facade, and its base on four stilts over a church also on the site made the skyscraper an instant architectural icon. The sloping roof houses the building's mechanical and ventilation systems. The designers settled on an aluminum-clad facade to reduce the weight load on the building's foundation and support structures, since its entire weight would be supported by stilts. To prevent swaying, a "tuned mass damper" was later added on the roof.

21st century

is a mixed-use skyscraper at Columbus Circle on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was the first major building to be completed since the September 11 attacks.
The Condé Nast Building, officially Four Times Square, is a modern skyscraper in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan and one of the most important examples of green design in skyscrapers in the United States. Environmentally friendly gas-fired absorption chillers, along with a high-performing insulating and shading curtain wall, ensure that the building does not need to be heated or cooled for the majority of the year. Office furniture is made with biodegradable and non-toxic materials. The air-delivery system provides 50% more fresh air than is required by New York City Building Code, and a number of recycling chutes serve the entire building. Being the first project of its size to undertake these features in construction, the building has received an award from the American Institute of Architects, as well as AIA New York State.
Hearst Tower, located in Midtown Manhattan at 300 West 57th Street, is another example of the new breed of green design skyscrapers in New York City. Hearst Tower is a glass and steel construction skyscraper which rests on the base of the original 1920s Hearst Corporation Building. Hearst Tower is easily identified by the dramatic interlocking triangular glass panels designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster. Hearst Tower is also the first skyscraper in New York City to be awarded the coveted Gold LEED Certified rating by the United States Green Building Council.

Tallest buildings

The 15 tallest standard structures, which include those with the 10 highest antennae or radio towers

Std.
rank
NameYear
Location

Floors
Pinnacle
height
ft		Pinn.
hgt
m		Standard
height
ft		Std.
hgt
m		Notes
One World Trade Center2013West Street & Vesey Street104--
Empire State Building1931Fifth Avenue & West 34th Street102--
432 Park Avenue2014Park Avenue & East 57th Street 89--
Bank of America Tower2009Sixth Avenue between 42nd & 43rd Sts54--
Chrysler Building1930Lexington Avenue & 42nd Street771,0463191,046319
New York Times Building2007Eighth Avenue between 41st & 42nd Sts521,0463191,046319
One572014West 57th Street between 6th & 7th Aves75--
American International Bldg †1932Pine, Cedar and Pearl Streets66--
40 Wall Street ‡1930Wall Street between Nassau & William Sts70--
Citigroup Center197753rd Street between Lexington & 3rd Aves59--
Trump World Tower2001First Avenue between 47th & 48th Streets72--
Comcast Building 193030 Rockefeller Plaza, 6th Ave, 49th & 50th Sts70850259850259
CitySpire Center1987West 56th Street between 6th & 7th Aves75--
One Chase Manhattan Plaza1961between Pine, Liberty, Nassau & William Sts60--
Condé Nast Building2000Broadway between 42nd & 43rd Streets48--
MetLife Building 1963200 Park Avenue at East 45th Street59--

Residential architecture

As New York City grew, it spread outward from where it originally began at the southern-tip of Manhattan Island into surrounding areas. In order to house the burgeoning population, farm land and open space in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island were developed into neighborhoods of brownstones, apartment buildings, multi-family and single-family homes. The density of this new construction generally depended on the area's proximity and accessibility to Manhattan.
The development of these areas was often spurred by the opening of bridges and the connection of boroughs via public transportation. For example, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883 and connects Brooklyn and Manhattan across the East River. Brooklyn Heights, a nabe on the Brooklyn waterfront, is often credited as the United States' first suburb. The bridge allowed an easier commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan and spurred rapid construction, development, and redevelopment. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, completed in 1964, opened up many areas of Staten Island to residential and commercial development, especially in the central and southern parts of the borough, which had previously been largely undeveloped. Staten Island's population doubled from about 221,000 in 1960 to about 443,000 in 2000.
By 1870, stone and brick had become firmly established as the building materials of choice, as the construction of wood-frame houses had been greatly limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a network of quarries, sometimes quite distant, which is evident in the variety of textures and hues of stone seen in the city's buildings. In the days before rail, stones were floated down the Hudson River or along the Atlantic Seaboard from pits in New England. While trains brought marble from Vermont and granite from Minnesota, it was Connecticut brownstone that was so popular in the construction of New York's row homes in the late 19th century that the term brownstone became synonymous with row house.
Beginning in the 1950s, public housing projects dramatically changed the city's appearance. New, large scale residential complexes replaced older communities, at times removing artifacts and landmarks that would now be considered of historic value. During this period, many of these new projects were built in an effort towards urban renewal championed by the famed urban planner Robert Moses. The resulting housing projects have suffered from inconsistent funding, poor maintenance, and high crime, prompting many to consider these projects a failure.
A distinctive feature of residential buildings in New York City is the presence of wooden roof-mounted water towers, which were required on all buildings higher than six stories by city ordinance in the 19th century because the municipal water pipes could not withstand the extraordinarily high pressure necessary to deliver water to the top stories of high-rise buildings.

Bridges and tunnels

New York City is located on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island are their own islands, while Queens and Brooklyn are located at the west-end of the larger Long Island. This precipitates a need for an extensive infrastructure of bridges and tunnels. Nearly all of the city's major bridges and several of its tunnels, have broken or set records. For example, the Holland Tunnel was the world's first vehicular tunnel when it opened in 1927.
The Queensboro Bridge is an important piece of cantilever architecture. The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge are built of limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement. Their architectural style is neo-Gothic, with characteristic pointed arches above the passageways through the stone towers. This bridge was also the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and the first steel-wire suspension bridge. The Manhattan Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge, Triborough Bridge, and Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge are all examples of Structural Expressionism.

Street grid

Formulated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, New York adopted a visionary proposal to develop Manhattan north of 14th Street with a regular street grid. The economic logic underlying the plan, which called for twelve numbered avenues running north and south, and 155 orthogonal cross streets, was that the grid's regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property. Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, disapproved.
New Yorkers commonly give addresses by the street and avenue number, as in "34th & 5th" for the Empire State Building.
One of the city's most famous thoroughfares, Broadway, is one of the longest urban streets in the world. Other famous streets include Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue. 42nd Street is the capital of American theater. The Grand Concourse, modeled on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, is the most notable street in the Bronx. The City Beautiful movement inspired similar boulevards in Brooklyn, known as.