Confirmation that the crown level has been reached through the removal of the formwork on the north side of the core.(from last weekend). I suppose that the rest of the formwork around the core will be removed in the coming days.
I wonder if you can angle a telephoto lens from the south through that large vacant part of the building to capture the crown of the ESB…hmm.
That’s a very interesting thought, I do believe it is possible, not sure how much of the mooring mast one would get with a telephoto lens, but the photo would need to be taken somewhere in the small stretch of Broadway in Madison Square Park (with some rough calcs from my model).
Here’s a similar vantage point photo I took last May, the location is proximate, but it give the general idea of relationship of the mast to where this building’s puncture hole is. The trees might actually block the view.
Please excuse the low-light smartphone photos, but I was passing by Madison Square Park this evening and a small portion of the ESB is definitely visible through 262 5th’s blow-through floors. Depending on where you stand, different portions of the crown and mast can be seen. The further north you go, the more the trees get in the way.
There you go! Because of the distance between the two I don’t believe it’s possible to see the entire mast regardless of camera lens used, though I could be wrong. But given your photos, it seems highly unlikely because that is the only general spot one can see the mast through and the viewing angle of the floor above the opening will block whatever more and more or less and less to a certain degree.
From 1.22.24:
Yep, looks like steel, hopefully i can get out to Edge/ in the vicinity of this this weekend to get some snaps.
That double-height, column free space 3/4 of the way to the top is going to be spectacular!
Can now 100% confirm that the sticks are steel, though I’m not sure what’s going on with the top of the core, there’s new rebar cages that have been put in, but they won’t be able to pour concrete on the one side since they removed the formwork and scaffolding 
It’s clear that the “base” level of the crown is actually where the steel starts to become galvanized as the portion below that will be encased in concrete. The core and the main portion of the tower have technically not reached their “full” height minus the crown portion.
In the later/darker photos (sorry about that) you can sort of see what I was describing before in that the sides of the crown won’t be flat/uniform, the edges are skinnier in width than the middle portions relative to the depth of the steel. because they finished interior face is a curve.
Will this building have a narrower height to width ratio than 111 W 57th?
I’ll refer you to this old post of mine 
Looks like it has topped out
As of today? It still has some 40-50 odd or so feet left, so definitely not topped out.
