Billionaires' Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World's Most Exclusive Skyscrapers by Katherine Clarke

Author:Katherine Clarke [Clarke, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

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WITH HIS OWN Central Park Tower, Gary Barnett was also thinking bigger and bolder than he had at One57. He looked to the Middle East for inspiration, tapping Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture to design it; Smith had been one of the architects behind the design of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. The firm’s expertise was in designing very, very tall buildings.

If the Steinway Tower from Michael Stern and Kevin Maloney was going to beat out Harry Macklowe’s 432 Park Avenue to become the tallest residential tower in the world, that record wouldn’t stand for long. Central Park Tower would quickly usurp it.

But exactly how tall should Central Park Tower be? Initial plans for the tower incorporated a spire, a subject of heated debate in the world of supertalls. Historically, some critics have argued that a spire or antenna should not count toward the recorded height of a building because it can’t be occupied, while others countered that such structures should be considered a continuation of the architectural form of the building. The architecture critic Michael Kimmelman once compared including an antenna in a building’s height to “counting relish at a hot dog eating contest.”

For Central Park Tower, the architects, Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith, initially proposed a simple, futuristic spire for the crown of the building that would have brought the structure’s total height to 1,787 feet, surpassing 1 World Trade Center, then the tallest building in the city. The trade center’s height, including its spire, came in at 1,776 feet. The height, a symbolic nod to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed, was intended as an homage to the indomitable, defiant spirit of a city rising from the ashes of 9/11. Smith and Gill suggested that Central Park Tower could continue this symbolic tradition with a further nod to American greatness, picking 1,787 feet as a salute to the year the U.S. Constitution was signed.

While the idea of having the tallest building in the city held undeniable appeal, Barnett rebuffed the recommendation, fearing it could be seen as disrespectful, given the painful history of the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center site. Instead, for Central Park Tower, he encouraged the architects to opt for something more subtle. They ultimately settled on a height of 1,550 feet, still 300 feet higher than the Empire State Building and enough to make sure that Extell could bill the tower as the tallest primarily residential building in the world. By comparison, 432 Park was only 1,396 feet and the Steinway Tower was slated to be only 1,428 feet.

But just because it would be the tallest residential building didn’t mean there would be great views in every direction. With 220 Central Park South now under construction to the northwest of Barnett’s Central Park Tower site, it was becoming clear how much Roth’s building would still block the views in one direction from the lower floors of Barnett’s new project. If the

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