33 Thomas Street: The Windowless Skyscraper Built for Machines
33 Thomas Street looks suspicious because it was designed that way: a hardened AT&T telephone-switching tower built to keep communications running through disaster.
Architecture
New York architecture explained through the engineering, design, history, and hidden systems of the city's most significant buildings.
The Woolworth Building Had to Invent a Way to Fight the Wind
When the Woolworth Building became the tallest building in the world, its engineers had to solve wind forces with a bracing system tailored to its strange shape.
American Copper Buildings: Why the Towers Lean Toward Each Other
The American Copper Buildings look like two towers bending in the wind, but the lean helps make their three-story skybridge possible.
One World Trade Center Is a Skyscraper Shaped by Security
One World Trade Center kept the symbolic 1,776-foot height from the original master plan, but its final form was transformed by security, leasing, and engineering demands.
The Flatiron Building Was Iconic Before It Was Practical
The Flatiron Building became one of New York's most beloved landmarks despite a triangular site, wind problems, awkward interiors, and years of vacancy.
The Empire State Building Was Built Like a Factory in the Sky
The Empire State Building's real miracle was not only its height. It was the industrial choreography that let a 102-story tower open in just over a year.
41-47 West 57th Street: The Supertall Buying Height With Subway Elevators
The planned supertall at 37-47 West 57th Street shows how New York's Zoning for Accessibility turns private development ambition into public transit upgrades.
The Oculus Was Designed Around a Single Morning
Santiago Calatrava's Oculus is a transit hub, a shopping concourse, and a memorial machine aligned to light on September 11.
How SoHo's Short Cast-Iron Buildings Helped Invent the Glass Tower
SoHo's cast-iron buildings are low by New York standards, but their prefabricated facades helped prove ideas that later made glass skyscrapers possible.
The SoHo Store That Taught New York to Build Up
The E.V. Haughwout Building looks like a cast-iron SoHo landmark, but its real importance is the passenger elevator that changed the economics of height.
United Nations Secretariat Building: The Tower Cooled by the East River
The United Nations Secretariat looks like a simple glass slab, but its cooling system depends on the East River and on a legal status unlike almost any other site in New York.
The Hudson Yards Tower That Had to Swallow a Subway Building
55 Hudson Yards looks like a clean office tower, but its base wraps around subway ventilation and station infrastructure built before the tower rose.