New York City Skyscrapers

This definitive guide to the world's most vertical city charts the history and engineering genius that has made Manhattan synonymous with skyscrapers. New York City is home to more skyscrapers than any other city in the world. Iconic in stature, they tell the story of the city's commercial and architectural history. The buildings pictured here stretch from the sidewalks to the sky, from the East River to the Hudson, from Battery Park to the far reaches of Central Park. Along with structures that are familiar to readers such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler and Woolworth buildings, there are other less recognizable but nonetheless important structures that have become a part of New Yorkers' daily lives. Each chapter focuses on an area of Manhattan, and opens with numbered maps showing the exact locations of the featured buildings. In a series of two to four page spreads, fullpage photographs of the skyscrapers are accompanied by additional illustrations, historical insights, architectural details, and interesting facts about their construction and evolution. An essay on the collective history of the city's skyscrapers rounds out this compilation of nearly 85 examples of New York City's most magnificent feature--its far-reaching, everchanging skyline. AUTHOR: DIRK STICHWEH is an avid New York fan and has been engaged in the study of skyscrapers for many years. He lives in Bremen, Germany. JÖRG MACHIRUS is a photographer based in Bremen, Germany. SCOTT MURPHY is a photographer based in New York.

The invention of the New York skyscraper is one of the most fascinating developments in the history of architecture. This authoritative book chronicles the history of New York's first skyscrapers, challenging conventional wisdom that it was in Chicago and not New York that the skyscraper was born. 206 illustrations.

New York City is the world’s undisputed capital of the skyscraper and is synonymous with this archetypal American form of architecture. Yet New York’s exceptional standing is not only due to the sheer number of skyscrapers; it is also the juxtaposition of so many high-rise buildings from different stylistic periods that gives the New York skyline its particular dynamism. This stunning and definitive guide presents the most prominent and significant skyscrapers in the world’s most vertical city. Managing to obtain access, often exclusive, to over 60 rooftops and viewpoints throughout Manhattan, Dirk Stichweh and Jörg Machirus photographed the incredible views afforded them from these heights, from Wall Street to uptown. Featuring over 80 high-rises from the Empire State Building to the recently erected One World Trade Center, this volume shares the stories behind their construction and discusses their influence on New York’s cityscape and international architectural history. Designed and written to appeal to anyone who is fascinated by the city, this beautiful book captures New York from a perspective few will ever see in person.

The Manhattan skyline is one of the great wonders of the modern world. But how and why did it form? Much has been written about the city's architecture and its general history, but little work has explored the economic forces that created the skyline. In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr chronicles the economic history of the Manhattan skyline. In the process, he debunks some widely held misconceptions about the city's history. Starting with Manhattan's natural and geological history, Barr moves on to how these formations influenced early land use and the development of neighborhoods, including the dense tenement neighborhoods of Five Points and the Lower East Side, and how these early decisions eventually impacted the location of skyscrapers built during the Skyscraper Revolution at the end of the 19th century. Barr then explores the economic history of skyscrapers and the skyline, investigating the reasons for their heights, frequencies, locations, and shapes. He discusses why skyscrapers emerged downtown and why they appeared three miles to the north in midtown-but not in between the two areas. Contrary to popular belief, this was not due to the depths of Manhattan's bedrock, nor the presence of Grand Central Station. Rather, midtown's emergence was a response to the economic and demographic forces that were taking place north of 14th Street after the Civil War. Building the Skyline also presents the first rigorous investigation of the causes of the building boom during the Roaring Twenties. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the boom was largely a rational response to the economic growth of the nation and city. The last chapter investigates the value of Manhattan Island and the relationship between skyscrapers and land prices. Finally, an Epilogue offers policy recommendations for a resilient and robust future skyline.

New York City Skyscrapers celebrates the numerous awe-inspiring buildings that have made New York the skyscraper capital of the world. This book traces the history of New York's tallest structures from the late 19th century, when church spires ruled the skyline, through the 20th century, when a succession of amazing buildings soared to new heights. From the Flatiron and Woolworth Buildings to the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings, the skyscrapers of New York have long captured the imagination of people around the world.

"This new edition of Manhattan Skyscrapers covers 10 new buildings and re-presents 75 historical structures, including such recent renovations as Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condit Building and Norman Foster's addition to the Hearst Magazine Building. A new introduction by Skyscraper Museum Director Carol Willis adds insight into the city in the 21st century. This book is a must for both the serious student of architecture and the casual collector of all things New York."--BOOK JACKET.

The city of New York is the city of skyscrapers. Every first-time visitor to Manhattan experiences the awe of gazing up at the soaring stone, steel, and glass towers of Wall Street or Midtown, and wonders how those structures came to be built. Manhattan Skyscrapers answers the question by presenting the 75 most significant tall buildings that make up the city's famous skyline. From Louis Sullivan's Bayard-Condict Building of 1898 on Bleeker Street to the Conde Nast tower currently rising above Times Square, Manhattan Skyscrapers lavishly presents over a hundred years of New York's most interesting and important tall buildings. Author Eric P. Nash profiles familiar skyscrapers such as the Woolworth Building, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the World Trade Towers, the AT&T (now Sony) Building, and the Seagram Building, while also championing several often-overlooked yet significant structures, such as the McGraw- Hill, the Metropolitan Life Insurance, and the Fred F. French Buildings. Nash's writing strikes an elegant balance between history, archi-tectural evaluation, and intelligent guidebook. For each building, Nash identifies the building style, gives the overall profile and image of the building, and discusses its construction; also included are quotes from the buildings' architects and the architectural critics of the time. Each skyscraper is illustrated with full-page color photo-graphs by noted photographer Norman McGrath as well as architectural drawings and plans, archival images of the original interiors, postcards, and other ephemera. Manhattan Skyscrapers is essential reading-or an ideal gift-for anyone interested in the buildings that make New York the ultimate skyscraper city.

Manhattan's natural history -- Mannahatta to Manhattan: settlement to grid plan -- Land use before the Civil War -- The tenements and the skyline -- The economics of skyscraper height -- Measuring the skyline -- The bedrock myth -- The birth of Midtown -- Edifice complex? The cause of the 1920s building boom -- What's Manhattan worth? 150 years of land values