NEW YORK | Penn 15 (401 7th Ave) | 1,200 FT | 61 FLOORS

From that angle it looks like an overgrown Kaufman project. Yuck!

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Lol, the Reddit community is really mocking and heavily criticizing this design.

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It looks like a robot wearing suspenders from that angle. I for one feel like NYC has enough 100% glass facade towers in the skyline as it is, but for this I feel they should at least somewhat make the southern face uniform with the north.

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100% glass? There’s metal cladding all over this tower

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I think Jackson’s comment is being misinterpreted, they aren’t commenting that theres not enough glass vs metal, etc, they are saying that the disjoint between the back side and front side is too extreme and that the back needs more glass.

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My apologies, I meant that while I like the notion of incorporating more non-glass materials into the facades of buildings of this size in general, this one does it so poorly that I’d rather they just have it look the same all the way around.

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I think it’s out of touch with the area.

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I wouldn’t say out of touch, we need the density to fill up certain gaps up Midtown. Is it subpar? Yes. But I don’t care. I want the density. I love the density. I have been advocating for massive density to fill up the entirety of Manhattan from the tip to Harlem.

It’ll be blocked out when new developments surround it.

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I agree its not out of touch…but it is unattractive and outdated.

175 Park Ave is the only 2M+ sf structure in the dev pipeline that is virtually guaranteed to be constructed as an office building.

For the next decade we’re going to see A LOT of residential and Penn 15’s location isn’t great. Better off scrapping the entire design, tearing down Manhattan Mall and redeveloping the whole block as a primarily resi/hotel site maybe with office podium.

The whole block has ~4M sf of dev rights so my dream is to see two 1.5M sf resi/hotel supertalls sprouting from a shared 1M sf office base. Like a supersized Time Warner Center.

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Coming down almost a floor/week


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Since they’re unlikely to launch right in to the new development, I wish they would keep the colonnade out front standing in the meantime.

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Unfortunately that would be structurally unstable and they are definitely not going to cough up extra money to reinforce it unless they were planning on keeping it.

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It is inevitable that the 7th Avenue colonnade will be demolished, but it will likely be the last part of the hotel to go.

Just like the 7th Avenue colonnade was the last part of the old Penn Station to be demolished in the 1960s.

Screenshot 2023-04-06 9.44.49 PM

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I know, just a bit of wishful/wistful thinking.

Only a few more floors.

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I bet Vornado was hoping that MSG would get their renewal denied so that Dolan would be forced to buy them out of this site and MSG would move here (along other junk buildings to be razed from 33rd to 34th on 7th).

On the other hand that’s a lot of ifs: I wonder if Vornado, had they known that tourism would bounce back significantly would have decided against razing Hotel Penn.

Manhattan Mall is more a white elephant now than Hotel Penn was.

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Hotel Penn had difficulties attracting tourists for decades. Run down with bedbugs in a not great location etc. Once the garment industry left the area there was less trade in general.

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A minor shortcoming perhaps, but the fax machine more than made up for it

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I can see this gigantic site sitting empty for years.

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