New Manhattan Tower Is Now the Tallest, if Not the Fairest, of Them All
When viewers tune in to “The Tonight Show” these days, besides Jimmy Fallon’s huge smile and the Afro of his bandleader, Questlove, they are met by a remarkably realistic Manhattan skyline.
There
is the cityscape on a curtain, of course — a staple of late-night
television since Johnny Carson was on the air — but also 37 wooden models behind Mr. Fallon’s desk. And not just of familiar landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, but less obvious ones, too, including the Hearst Tower, the Pier 17 mall and the Maritime Hotel.
Yet
one building is missing that is impossible to miss, and not only from
Mr. Fallon’s offices at Rockefeller Center but just about everywhere in
New York City: 432 Park Avenue.
On
Friday, the 104-unit condominium tower, between 56th and 57th Streets,
reached its peak of 1,396 feet. At 96 stories, it is arguably the
tallest building in the city. One World Trade Center has its spire, but the skyscraper itself is 28 feet shorter than 432 Park. As for the Empire State Building,
this new 93-foot-by-93-foot concrete megalith bests it by nearly 150
feet. From the living room of 432 Park’s penthouses, it is possible to
look down on the observation deck there, flash bulbs glittering like an
oversize chandelier.
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But
even more than the views from the apartments, it may be the views of
them that give 432 Park its allure. From Central Park, Park Avenue or
Park Slope, there it is. On the George Washington Bridge or Long Island
Expressway, there it is. In the bleachers at MetLife Stadium or Citi
Field, there it is. Everyone from cinematographers and muralists to
tourists and snow globe makers must now contend with the tower.
“It’s almost like the Mona Lisa,” Harry B. Macklowe, the developer building the $1.3 billion tower,
said at a topping-out ceremony on Friday for 1,500 construction
workers. “Except instead of it looking at you, you’re looking at it
wherever you are. You can’t escape it.”
Not that everyone agrees the building, developed with the CIM Group, based in Los Angeles, is a work of art.
“God,
does it stand out,” said Marlene Rosenthal, who regularly glimpses it
while riding Metro-North. “It’s a status symbol, and that’s the name of
the game in this city.”
There
can be no doubt the skyline has changed, yet New Yorkers are less sure
whether it has changed for better or worse. Some are awed by the
slender, omnipresent obelisk, its perfect symmetries, an undeniable feat
of engineering; others are repulsed by its dimensions, both physical
and financial, where units cost as much as $95 million, an undeniable
feat of excess.
“For
people who watch the skyline and love it, I think there’s a real
struggle,” said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society.
“There’s a handsomeness about the building you can’t deny, but it’s so
out of context and so imposing, it’s hard to know what to make of it.”
His
group has urged City Hall to monitor these supertowers more closely. A
dozen others are already in the works throughout Manhattan.
The
monuments in New York, unlike those in London, Paris and Washington,
have always been its tall buildings. This one is no different.
For
the first three centuries, it was a pair of churches, Collegiate and
Trinity. Then came the World Building, Manhattan Life Insurance, Park
Row and Woolworth, emblems of the city’s business and media might. The
Empire State Building, constructed in 410 days, showed hardworking
beauty and recessionary resolve. The World Trade Center, both original
and resurrected, built as a symbol of defiance that the city would be
great again.
And
now, with more than half of the 104 condos sold, including the $95
million penthouse and the cheapest units starting at $7 million, 432
Park proves that that skyline is for sale.
Whoever said money can’t buy happiness has never been inside an apartment 1,300 feet above a bustling metropolis.
Yet even if those apartments are out of reach, it is only a matter of time before anyone can buy one — though on a postcard or a plate at Fishs Eddy.
Movie and advertising backdrops also seem inevitable. Snow globes and
other knickknacks might be slower to incorporate 432 Park.
“Unless
it becomes a part of the lexicon or the public consciousness of New
York, I don’t see it becoming a big souvenir,” said Nathan Harkrader, a
co-founder of NYCwebstore.com, an online souvenir shop. “This has to be something people in Atlanta, Chicago or Las Vegas are going to recognize and know.”
And
so the producers of “The Tonight Show” have yet to decide whether to
include 432 Park in their skyline. The Mets have ruled out adopting it
in their logo, a spokesman said, and the same goes for the badge of the Fire Department.
Tony
Malkin, whose family has controlled the Empire State Building since
1961, said he would not add 432 Park to the interactive displays on its
observation decks, which help visitors identify the skyline. “It’s
medieval,” Mr. Malkin said. “That’s where towers come from, the Middle
Ages. The wealthy built them for protection and isolation from the city
below.”
Fortresses can still be seductive, though. For Demid Lebedev, a 17-year-old daredevil who posts his exploits on Instagram,
432 Park was his Everest. One day, after watching the tower grow, he
and a friend decided that “we need to get up there,” he wrote in an
email.
“When
we made our way up to the crane I believe we were around the 90th floor
and it was incredible! We were literally above the clouds. I can’t
really compare it to any other building.”
His photos
received thousands of views online, and he received a visit from police
detectives a few days later, Mr. Lebedev said. For the night he spent
up on the tower, he was arrested and spent the night in jail.
Such
reactions are what inspired Mr. Macklowe to build 432 Park, he said,
which is unlikely to be overshadowed anytime soon, thanks to its
location at the edge of Midtown.
What
surprised him was any criticism of his building as ugly or uninspired.
“If somebody thinks a 1,400-foot building is boring, well, I just don’t
get that,” he said. To those who find it crass, he pointed to the
hundreds of workers building and soon operating the tower: “A lot of
guys have come up to me today and said: ‘Thank you. Because of this
building, I can afford my own house.’ ”
It just won’t be one down the street.
If Manhattan has truly become a playground for the rich, here is its new beacon.
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