Trust me. My vision is true for this one. It would be well worth the sacrifice of one beaux-arts building past its prime. This would preserve Grand Central after all, and if the blueprints are saved, the documents exist to perhaps rebuild the Helmsley building somewhere else.
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I think itâs better to demolish the MetLife/PanAm building. The Helmsley building is a nice Art Deco building. But for a tower like this, I wouldnât care if they demolished the entire Grand Central Terminal to build it.
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Both of you no, bad boys.
The Metlife is more than enough
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Whatâs this about view corridors to the north and south of ESB? There are none existing or proposed that Iâm aware of. There are proposed view corridors to the west of ESB as part of the future Empire Station redevelopment, but none along Fifth for the north and south facades. So any âfairly likely scenarioâ for the Midtown skyline would include supertalls to the north and south of ESB as well. There are already two proposed, 262 Fifth to the south and 520 Fifth to the north.
As for the Met Life North building, they gutted the base building during renovations and removed the many elevator shafts needed to support a large skyscraper, so any hypothetical completion would also involve significant changes to the existing base building. Iâm also having trouble imagining what the function of a completed Met Life North would be, the floor plates seem too large to be residential, but office tenants prefer floor-to-ceiling windows which this building lacks.
In regards to a hypothetical megatall elsewhere in the city, Iâve long maintained that the best spot is around a future redeveloped Penn Station or PABT. IMO some other good candidates are large sites in Times Square (possibly where one of those big ugly hotels areâbut not the Marriott Marquis, I like that one) or Park Avenue between Helmsley and 57th (there are several full blocks filled with forgettable buildings). I like the Park Ave MetLife Building and wouldnât get rid of it but I can see why others would. And talking about demolishing Helmsley or GCT is insanity, I donât care if itâs for a mile high tower.
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I still think downtown should have a megatall. That area has gotten little to no development.
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I remember that proposal! It was from SHoP. Yes, that would be a dream come true. A new world class Penn Station with green space + a gorgeous megatall is what the Penn District needs.
I think a redeveloped PABT will be the âfinal frontierâ of Midtown development, after the Far West Side and the Penn District are built out, many years from now. It has the potential for several large towers that would fund a rebuilt bus terminal.
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To answer your question on view corridors, I was referring to the apparent lack of towers to the immediate north/south of the esb in the renderings by @bmosborne and I was not referring to anything set in stone. There was just not any other term I could think of at the moment, so I chose that term. Sorry for any confusion.
In regards to the MetLife North project, yes, they gutted the base building and the original core was reduced in size. I would totally rebuild the original core and yes, that would entail some pretty big changes. The function would be live-work units on the newly-constructed floors, all the way up to an observation facility which would be installed around the antenna/spire. The lower floors would continue to be purely-commercial office space for the purposes of achieving as little disruption as possible.
In regards to a future megatall, yes, the Penn Station/PABT area is ripe with potential development spots, but any time a new supertall/megatall is proposed on the west side, it seems as if they get reduced in size/scope for some reason. Site K/Affirmation Tower? Hudson Spire? You would have to get a ton of interest in it, as 6th, 7th and 8th arenât exactly 5th, Madison, Park or even Lexington in terms of notoriety.
As for some of the full blocks on Park, it is far more aesthetic and idealistic in nature for me. There is no better site in Midtown than that one, so use it to build a mile-high New York City icon that replaces an outdated, midcentury eyesore AND an outdated, prewar dinosaur. This project would NOT be demolishing GCT whatsoever, that basically stays as long as it doesnât spontaneously crumble into dust!
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@bmosborne did another rendering of Midtown Manhattan with Two Bridges in the foreground, so I decided to put the Two Bridges LSRD and the MetLife North Building in this rendering as well.
It is pretty amazing how mid-century and gritty the Lower East Side seems, even right now. Brick and concrete mid-rises still populate the vast majority of the area, and leave great views up the island just waiting to be monetized. Midtown will have its moments, but no tower really seems to stand out here. Somethingâs missing, but thereâs no big push for top dog. At least, not with this iteration.
With this new wave, the Lower East Side still remains gritty, but provides new towers to be able to go toe-to-toe with some of the better filler buildings in the new Midtown Manhattan, but with the added amenity of better views. The MetLife North building actually holds sway and is an icon for the southern terminus of Midtown, replacing the outdated Empire State Building as mac-daddy of Midtown.
A first invitation goes out to these people who have not so far participated in this thread. Welcome these folks;
@JC_Heights
@TK2000
Another 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
PS. This is the 69th post on this thread, so nice!
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Hereâs another invite to contribute to this thread! I hope you do, I want to hear what you have to say!
And a first invite to a couple more people, namely
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The 2 Bridges towers will certainly add some height to an area that is pretty much flat right besides One Manhattan Square. And while they wonât have the quality of the Brooklyn Tower, they will certainly be good for a counterpoint of DTBK. And now Jersey City will be building lots of huge new apartment complexâs like this
NEWARK | 289-301 Washington Street (The Halo) | 40 + 40 FLOORS - New York / Proposed - YIMBY Forums (newyorkyimby.com)
And this
JERSEY CITY | West Side Crossing | FT | 30 + 39 + 55 + 56 FLOORS - New York / Proposed - YIMBY Forums (newyorkyimby.com)
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To be honest I have no real enthusiasm for scattering large buildings over most of Manhattan below 59th Street. I am concerned both about the ability of infrastructure to handle the load and the continuing need for housing for lower and middle income people. Sending them far out of town is only going to make the midtown and other business areas of the city more difficult to maintain over the long haul. They will get less and less willing to make the commute both because of cost and time. They will jobs in the burbs. And if center city jobs go begging, watch businesses leave like they did in the 1950s and 1960s to find workers. Diversity of both building types and people types is necessary for maintaining a vibrant city.
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Iâm going to disagree with you on the scattering of large buildings over most of Manhattan, that is exactly what I want to see.
But I agree with you that the rest of the city needs to get a lot more mid rises, like in a city like Paris. Get rid of exclusive single family zoning, get rid of FAR on residential buildings, making zoning a lot more mixed use instead of purely residential zones, or purely commercial, etc. Lots of things need to be done.
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Sorry, been out of town w/limited internet.
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Itâs aight! I just wanted to welcome you to this thread! Very interested in your perspective on this vision for the MetLife North Building, a tower that would technically be completed, albeit way past the normal completion time of a skyscraper, in New York City. I basically intend to position this building as the next great Art-Deco skyscraper in New York City.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but expanding the building is impossible without rezoning.
Per NYC planning, this is a C5-3 lot with a FAR of 15. With a lot size of 83,937 square feet, that means a maximum allowable square footage of 1,259,055.
The existing building is already 1,630,256 â significantly larger than the modern zoning will allow.
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It also has a residential FAR equivalent of R10, so the underlying zoning actually supports a tower up to a measurement between 2,266,299 square feet to 2,266,312.5 square feet, if this tower is to be mixed-use, which it would be. They have the underlying zoning right now to add between 636,043 to 636,056.5 square feet of mixed-use space. However, they donât have the tranches of air rights to accomplish even that. I would, however, change up the zoning to something larger to allow for some previously discussed air rights to be used. I would want to build the whole, 3,595,636 square foot tower. That would require I use 1,329,337 square feet of those air rights, which would leave me with a surplus of 226,731 square feet to basically play around with. Some of those rights will go towards the construction of an ESB-style crown on top, and the final amount I would sell off to any smaller developers in the area so they can build whatever smaller, filler buildings around this one.
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@Mackensen shared these photos and links on another thread. Please give this one credit for the following entries.
Please give further thanks to @bmosborne @mcart @DeSelby @MarshallKnight @NewYorkCity76 and @5Bfilms for their contributions to this thread. Also, @robertwalpole and @galebrewerwitch are invited to contribute as well!
Blockquote
MetLife North
On Flick NicolĂĄs Molina | Flickr
Credit: NYguy
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151636&page=7
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Looks so real! 
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