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| View from the top of Empire skyscraper. |
Last week few final feet were added to the building at 432 Park Ave. The tower that sits between 56th and 57th streets, is now the tallest building in the city and the western hemisphere. Do you want to live on the 90th floor? ( I do not!)
The building is 28 feet taller than One World Trade Center– if you don’t count the spire. New York’s tallest buildings have always been its icons: the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center. I already wrote about two the most recent additions to the New York Sky line- One World Trade Center (Freedom tower) and One 57,that is just several blocks to the west from the new giant.
The 96-story on Park avenue condo offers 104 units, ranging in price from $16.95million to $95million. Windows are huge, at 10 x 10 feet, each apartment has 12-foot ceilings and private elevators. You can buy a 6 bedroom condo on one of the top floors of the building for $82 million.
The developer of the building said: “It’s almost like the Mona Lisa, except instead of it looking at you, you’re looking at it wherever you are. You can’t escape it.” On a clear day you can see the building from all five borough of the great New York. It changed the skyline of the city.
If you live on the lower floor you still have access to the view- there are huge windows on the resident-only observation deck.
There are climate-controlled wine cellars, an outdoor terrace, a spa, a “massage therapy room,” and a pool in the building.
One of the most impressive things about 432 Park Avenue is its width to height ratio (slenderness ratio), 19:1, which makes it one of the thinnest skyscrapers in the world. Slender towers require special measures, and sometimes considerable expense, to counteract the exaggerated forces of wind on the vertical cantilever. The most slender residential skyscraper in the world is Hong Kong's Highcliff, which rises 72 stories and 828 feet (252 meters) with an slenderness ratio of 1:20. The Skyscraper Museum at 39 Battery Place currently has an excellent exhibit in place called Sky-high & the Logic of Luxury that explains more details of super slender towers.
Real Estate site about the luxury buildings in NY published an intersecting picture some time ago. On this picture you can see what the skyline will look like in 2020. Of these five buildings, one them - the 90-story One57 (second from the right) is complete. Four of the five buildings are on the west side of Midtown Manhattan.
The market for ultra-luxury apartments in New York City is booming. The space is very limited and the buildings became slimmer and higher. One57, that was the tallest residential tower before 432 park, sits on the 57th Street that earned the nickname "Billionaires' Row." 57th Street is already known for its famous buildings, hotels, and restaurants.
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| From left to right: 432 Park Ave., 111 West 57th St., 53 53rd St., One57, and Nordstrom Tower http://www.llnyc.com |
432Park is the tallest for now, but not for a long time- the plans for the Nordstrom Tower on the Western end of 57 street are already approved.
Before 432 Park there was Drake hotel on this lot, the corner of Park Avenue and 56 street. The hotel was built in 1926 and had 21 floors with 495 rooms.
Notable hotel guests included Frank Sinatra and Muhammed Ali. During their stay there in 1973, Led Zeppelin had $203,000 stolen from a safe deposit box at the hotel. The money was never recovered and the identity of the thief or thieves has never been discovered .
