That is a fair point… I guess I maybe take exception to city-defining architecture being so out-or-scale and prominent. I would say that Empire was fairly unique being the tallest in the city (and world) for decades, commanding attention and awe in the same way the Eiffel Tower does. It’s at the center of the island with a symmetrical design too which I think also makes a difference too.
Essentially, one wants the Empire to stay completely out-of-scale with everything around it
Quite a bit of grey (non-historic) on the map on the blocks to the north and south. But GVSHP treats it all like yellow (historic).
Even within the historic district, not all sites are contributing according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
We have no idea what this tower will look like, but I think city-defining is pretty vague, arbitrary, and subject to changing tastes. When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was considered unworthy of being so prominent on the Paris skyline, an eyesore because of its height, “dominating Paris just like a gigantic black factory chimney.” It took decades for people to appreciate it.
40 of Paris’s most prominent intellectuals wrote in protest:
"We, defenders of the beauty of Paris that was until now intact, are protesting in the name of the underestimated taste of the French, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the erection in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower, which popular ill feeling, so often an arbiter of good sense and justice, has already christened the Tower of Babel. Will the city of Paris continue to [make] itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonor to itself? Because the Eiffel Tower that even the commercial Americans didn’t want, will without a doubt dishonor Paris. ”
And the protesters conclude by mocking this “tower of ridiculous vertiginous height, dominating Paris just like a gigantic black factory chimney, spreading across the whole city like a dark ink stain, the odious shadow of this odious column of bolted metal. ”
It’s not really vague in my opinion. If someone wanted to put a Burj Khalifa in the meatpacking that would certainly be city-defining, no question. It would completely redefine the whole skyline And I don’t think I would oppose something like that, is all I’m saying.
Also, It’s ok to keep a few low-scaled areas in the city’s core imo. Not every neighborhood has to be quite large high-rise towers everywhere, I believe. I wouldn’t necessarily want the scale of the neighborhood to catch up to this new proposal, especially right on the water.
Look at the grey areas, then look at how much has already been redeveloped in those areas Not much left.
In NYC in recent years we’ve seen several very large developed sites demolished for even larger ones: the 22-story Hotel Pennsylvania, with 2,200 rooms, and the 52-story Union Carbide building. The taller you can build, the more likely the existing developed sites will be redeveloped. And just one or two nearby towers would take it out of ‘sore thumb’ territory.
Here’s what was on the Empire State Building site before it was built. Pretty substantial, too.
I don’t see them tearing down the Standard hotel to build something taller in the near future.
