NEW YORK | 175 Park Avenue (Grand Hyatt) | 1,575 FT | 85 FLOORS

I agree. There are enormous numbers of them too. Here’s one random one on a random street. This would be one of the historic gems in virtually every US city other than Boston, Philly, Chicago, and SF.

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JCHeighrs

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Agreed. I work in Flatiron and the sheer number of late 19th and early 20th century masterpieces is overwhelming. Any other city would have 10-20 of these and they would be iconic.

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There are 73 prewar buildings over 400 feet tall in Manhattan.

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https://newyorkyimby.com/2023/01/new-rendering-released-for-project-commodore-supertall-at-175-park-avenue-in-midtown-east-manhattan.html

The new render makes it look even shorter.

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Damn on second look, you’re right. Using One Vanderbilt as a measuring stick (and these are perfectly parallel to each other, not like one is a few blocks away) this new render makes it look about 1450-1475 feet tall.

Really hoping that rendering isn’t 100% accurate in regards to height. But I’m assuming official renderings always are accurate?

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:nauseated_face::face_vomiting:
Bleh

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they look to be the same height to me, i think the crown on the new rendering is just a little more stubby

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It looks like the office sections were reduced from 3 ‘zones’ to 2 and the top hotel portion was made more slender. Maybe they’re hoping to get someone like Amex to take the lowest office third as a block of space, which could easily be 1.25M sf on its own.

Its still clearly ~1500+ ft though. There are at least 5 stories of crown/tower between the top of 1 VB spire and the updated roof line.

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they also reduced the amount of columns so the crown has a less dense lattice effect

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Lol everyone needs to calm down, Just because one person said it looks shorter now doesnt mean it is, nor does that mean everyone should start trying to measure it when I’ve told everyone (and even physically shown with diagrams) multiple times months ago that the design has always been shown as being ~1555’ tall in the renders, which no, they are not always 100% accurate.

Them being the same distance from the view point does not matter because their setbacks and overall height still affect their heights in relation to one another, one could only measure them proportionally to each other if they were completely vertical walls top to bottom. And because the ground is not level, this site is ~25’ lower in elevation than One Vanderbilt’s lowest entrance. I’ve said many times that people can not use images to measure things no matter how appropriate they appear because so many different factors. One Vanderbilt’s spire is not 50’ -75’ tall for you to come to those measurements since the building is 1401’. It’s almost 120’ tall. The building is still being shown as ~1555’. The previous render as I posted the few posts back compared to the new one is only the slightest taller but that is because, like I said, renders are not 100% accurate.

Everyone simmer down, not everything always needs to be about the height.

@SideStreet the building is the slightest slimmer, but even though the tiers are less by 1 and have moved their locations, where the floors are has not changed so the tiers can’t be used as an indicator to demarkate the different functions, the overall makeup of the floors is still the same only for the removal of one tier and the moving of the tiers, the overal area is still the same from adding that one tier back to the area calculations.

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Thank you TKDV, the voice of reason on this forum.

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Even if it is ~1450 ft, there’s no reason to get worked up about it. If it got cut down to like 1200 ft that would be a different story, but a 100 ft height cut is chump change on the skyline. What really matters is that NYC is getting a massive, gorgeous new tower with generous public space and transportation improvements. Quibbling over whether it’s 1450 or 1480 or 1550 feet or whatever is looking a gift horse in the mouth. Because of how wide this tower is, it’s going to have an absolutely massive impact on the skyline either way.

Anyway, I like how they’ve made the mullions and transoms of the curtain wall more prominent in the newest version. Gives the facade even more texture and solidity. All of the Midtown East towers have fine details to break up the monotony of the glass facades: the terra cotta on One Vanderbilt, the bronze mullions and columns on 270 Park, and the metallic accents and columns on 175 Park. It’s a nice contrast to the new far west side towers which are mostly just glass.

Old

New

Images from SOM

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Interesting that exterior form doesn’t follow function as I assumed.

I thought the tier exterior setbacks would coincide with core setbacks too a la 3 WTC. I guess that’s probably not the case either

100 ft can make a difference, a noticeable one

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Even though I personally do not like the wideness of the tower, generally, well said for everything, :+1:

As to the render and aspect changes, I think those are just products of how the building was rendered, I don’t believe the spandrel glazing will be as visible as portrayed in the newer render, it just looks more apparent/visible because of the view angle and lighting setup in the render. The are technically still the same, the difference with the new render is the addition of those beautiful gothic like mullions to follow the form of the columns.

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Per an initial section and floor usage diagram, the core haphazardly started to setback at random points, partially coinciding with the setbacks but mainly just stopping at odd points in the overall theirs. Since the outline of the building has changed from removing that one tier, the core has also probably changed to start stopping at those intervals sooner but it is still most likely not coinciding with the locations of the setbacks. Cores setbacks don’t necessarily have to follow building setbacks and vice versa (even when they are significant setbacks) and they generally don’t in most cases. 50 Hudson Yard’s core setback was 6 stories short of where the actual setback is.

The hotel still starts where the highest tier originally was, which is now about 1/3 the way up the highest tier in this new version, the bottom portion of that tier is still office, as it was in the previous tier, if that makes sense.

@mcart I think the point DeSelby was trying to make was why does everything always have to be about height? (as I understand the comment) and because the building is extremely wide it would still have impact in any situation disregarding height changing in the range of 100’. Height to me is only one factor in a number of things (as it relates to this project in particular) but it’s seemingly always brought up as if it’s the most important aspect of the project, the tower could be officially lowered by 5’ and it’s like there would be a massive uproar.

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It would still have an impact at 500 ft because of how wide it is, but I also don’t want it to be 500 ft tall.

Height is not the be all end all, but it is an important factor for me, it may not be for other people here but for me it is.

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And that’s both understandable and respectable. But I think to assume that DeSelby meant “any” height change (like 1000’ being removed as you’ve said to be 500’ instead) is kind of reaching. The quibbling DeSelby was talking about was hovering around a 100’ difference, and they even mentioned that it being changed to 1200’ would be a different story. I don’t think we should reach sort of outlandish conclusions based on other’s views and a general understanding that the project would never be cut by 1000’. :+1:

Overall, the quibbling goes back to the original height of 1646’, the matter of that fact was that it was never actually 1646’ tall because that was the maximum allowable height, but when it was “chopped” to 1575’ everyone and their mother went crazy as if the building itself was shortened, when in reality, it was always 1575’ tall in structural and architectural terms. It was simply never 1646’ tall.

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@SideStreet

I made this simple diagram to show the difference between the 2 forms (darker line is the current form), the building is still as wide and narrow as it’s previous iteration, it appears slimmer because the upper volume is taller and the crown the slightest more narrow at the top. But visually, one can see where the new building took back and subtracted sqft in other areas of the older outline.

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image

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