Why the Tappan Zee Bridge Was Built in the Wrong Place
The Tappan Zee Bridge crossed the Hudson at one of its widest points because the toll money mattered more than the cleanest engineering answer.
New York
Why Brooklyn's First Supertall Looks Like a Villain's Lair
The Brooklyn Tower borrowed its shape from the landmarked Dime Savings Bank, then turned that geometry into the borough's darkest skyline object.
The Battery Memorial Where a Sailor Drowns With the Tide
The American Merchant Mariners' Memorial turns a lost World War II photograph into a sculpture that disappears and returns with New York Harbor.
Why Louis Vuitton Turned Its Construction Site Into Giant Luggage
Louis Vuitton could have hidden its Fifth Avenue renovation behind ordinary scaffolding. Instead, it made the construction cover part of the brand.
The MTA Headquarters Renovation That Became a Mob Case
2 Broadway was supposed to consolidate the MTA's offices. Instead, its renovation became a case study in inflated costs, weak oversight, and alleged organized-crime influence.
How One South First Carries Apartments Over Open Air
One South First at Domino looks like part of it is floating, because its apartments bridge across a gap above the Williamsburg waterfront.
How Cleopatra's Needle Was Dragged Into Central Park
New York's ancient Egyptian obelisk survived thousands of years, but getting it from Alexandria to Central Park was its own engineering epic.
Why 325 Kent Avenue Has a Hole Through the Middle
325 Kent Avenue's dramatic opening was a way to build housing at Domino without turning the Williamsburg waterfront into a wall.
The Glass Office Tower Hidden Inside the Domino Sugar Refinery
Brooklyn's Domino Sugar Refinery could not be treated like an ordinary development site, so its new office building was slipped inside the landmarked shell.
The Courtscraper With a Tiny Central Park Inside
VIA 57 West fused a European courtyard block with a Manhattan tower, creating Bjarke Ingels's first major New York building and a new hybrid type.
How Tammany Hall Became a Petco Under a Turtle Shell
The old Tammany Hall building at Union Square preserves the facade of New York's most famous political machine, then crowns it with a glass dome inspired by Lenape imagery.
The Skyscraper That Used a Plaza to Save Lower Manhattan
One Chase Manhattan Plaza used an old zoning rule to rise as a clean slab, then turned its leftover ground into one of Lower Manhattan's great modern plazas.