I like the analogy and description of what you’ve said. 
As @bmosborne mentioned, I do wish it has the potential to rise, to resurrect it after what happened during the great depression. And as you said that’ll truly replace the ESB as the new king. But at least we got One Vandy as the 21st-century version of it.
One Vanderbilt’s design more closely follows the Chrysler Building rather than the Empire State Building.
Looking online, with a rule change or two regarding air rights transfers, this project has a few nearby places they can buy up air rights from since they don’t have any. The first is the 69th Regiment Armory building on Lexington Avenue. The second is Gramercy Park. The third is the Consolidated Edison building on 14th and Irving. Those spots would be given enough funding for maintenance/management for quite some time, you can preserve a couple landmarks for the foreseeable future, and a smaller park can be given plenty of funds to improve its offerings/programming, and become more resilient in the process. What you get in return is the general goodwill of the surrounding neighborhoods, if not a few powerful local institutions, and enough air rights to finish the original planned building, plus a hundred thousand square feet or two to play around with, or sell off to some smaller developers for infill/spillover surrounding the big one.
The Municipal Arts Society has a decent map outlining air rights in the city. Use it for what it’s worth.
Nice map. So I assume the red areas are where it was landmarked or something? Or is it unsutibable to build in that area?
The bright red areas are landmarks, and the maroon areas are large tranches of air rights. Here’s a full-screen version of the map with additional layers. Again, use it for what it’s worth.
@bmosborne shared an image in a separate thread that I thought could use the treatment of the MetLife North Building. From a distance and especially from this particular, western elevation, this building would contribute a new southern beachhead, and it would certainly make the midtown Manhattan skyline look much more bold than it even is now. This would also make the midtown skyline even again, bringing a significant amount of space at the southern end, and providing a counterweight to the billionaires’ row towers at the northern end of the neighborhood.
Tagging all of the fantastic contributors to this thread here! I appreciate all the honesty and knowledge these folks have been sharing, not just on this thread, but throughout the entire selection of forums!
@NewYorkCity76
@MarshallKnight
@DeSelby
@mcart
@BK1985
Here is the original image;
Here is the revised image;
If that came to fruition then New York would have its first megatall in the city, and also it would be a challenge for Chicago to rival NYC’s skyline 
The thing that would help Chicago in terms of some sprawl is the Big Shift proposal some years back that never got off the ground, that was a pretty awesome idea! Now, New York always has that land bridge from Manhattan to Governors Island in its back pocket though!
I just looked up the Big Shift, and it’s an awesome concept. Now if that concept came to fruition in Chicago then it’ll most certainly be rivaling the NYC skyline.
At least the Midtown portion of Manhattan. Again, NYC always has that slice called Lower Manhattan, Downtown, the Battery, New Amsterdam, whichever other term you prefer. New York always has that area over Chicago, and you can’t take that away from New York.
Yeah, which would make the whole NYC skyline one megacity, like 4 cities into one (5 if you include Jersey City and 6 if you include Co-op city in the Bronx)
I am tagging you guys on this visionary project. I want your input on this one. Would this be a good trade-off for Tower Fifth?
Another set of renderings by @bmosborne that I have given my MetLife North Treatment. This time, showing four conditional scenarios regarding real estate development in Midtown Manhattan. This set of renderings shows a more detailed comparison of the current skyline without the Metropolitan North Project to one that includes it. It also shows a similarly detailed comparison of the future skyline without the Metropolitan North Project to one that includes it as well.
As we can clearly see in the first comparison, the Metropolitan North Project presents a new southern beachhead that brings the midtown skyline a few blocks south and a block or two to the east, balancing out the skyline away from the new western crop of towers at Hudson Yards, Manhattan West and all the other spillover projects on the west side. We don’t need to get into detail here, we’ve already discussed those benefits at length before on this thread.
Current Skyline Without:
Current Skyline Including:
The potential future of Midtown Manhattan consists of a fairly likely scenario where the Empire State Building is buried under a mound of new, modernist towers, whose only redeeming quality regarding it is a preserved view corridor to the southern and northern exposures. The Metropolitan North Project, on the other hand, could be the project that keeps the Art-Deco movement in the New York City limelight for years to come, in the epic ways of New York City.
Future Skyline Without:
Future Skyline Including:
Another invitation is in order to those people whom I have previously welcomed to this thread, namely;
@chused
@5Bfilms
@lowkeylion
A big Thank You is Always needed to the folks who have so far contributed to this thread, namely these people who have put out amazing material and who have made this thread amazing!
@NewYorkCity76
@mcart
@MarshallKnight
@BK1985
@DeSelby
Now that’s a coruscant NYC skyline!
That is my dream for a developer to realize.
Now do a mile-high tower behind Grand Central, taking up the space previously occupied by the Helmsley Building and the MetLife Building? Maybe glean the design from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile High tower?
Just right, basically. This is America, so do it a mile high! Go all-out! Then do the Lower Manhattan land bridge to Governors Island, building that area out with the same density as the rest of the financial district, and finally rebuild the Twin Towers 5,954 feet high.
Nah, keep the Helmsley Building, get rid of the Metlife building.
