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520 Fifth Avenue: The Supertall Wearing a Terracotta Disguise

520 Fifth Avenue: The Supertall Wearing a Terracotta Disguise

At 520 Fifth Avenue, an aluminum curtain wall borrows the texture and glow of fired clay, allowing a 1,000-foot tower to speak in the architectural language of old Midtown.

The English Ruins Beneath Manhattan’s East Side

The English Ruins Beneath Manhattan’s East Side

A stretch of the FDR Drive rests on an unlikely foundation: rubble carried across the Atlantic from bombed-out Bristol as wartime ship ballast.

IAC Building: The Manhattan Building That Bent Glass Into Sails

IAC Building: The Manhattan Building That Bent Glass Into Sails

After years of unrealized New York proposals, Frank Gehry found his opening on the Hudson, where he turned an ordinary office curtain wall into a white, windblown landmark.

Why Gateway Is Turning the Hudson Riverbed Into Stone

Why Gateway Is Turning the Hudson Riverbed Into Stone

Before tunnel-boring machines can carve a new rail link into Manhattan, engineers must transform the Hudson’s soft mud and reclaimed shoreline into ground strong enough to hold them.

Equitable Building: The Skyscraper That Made New York Step Back

Equitable Building: The Skyscraper That Made New York Step Back

The Equitable Building’s enormous shadow was legal, but the backlash helped produce the zoning rules behind New York’s wedding-cake skyline.

Worldwide Plaza: The Tower That Dressed for an Older New York

Worldwide Plaza: The Tower That Dressed for an Older New York

Its brick walls and copper crown helped lure corporate Manhattan west in the 1980s. Nearly four decades later, the same landmark is caught in a very modern office-market crisis.

The Hess Triangle: New York’s Tiny Monument to Property and Spite

The Hess Triangle: New York’s Tiny Monument to Property and Spite

A sidewalk mosaic in Greenwich Village preserves the memory of a parcel the city missed, along with a family’s refusal to surrender it.

The Times Square Tower Caught Between Bright Lights and a Greener Future

The Times Square Tower Caught Between Bright Lights and a Greener Future

One Five One helped introduce solar walls and fuel-cell power to the Manhattan skyline. Its aging green technology now reveals how quickly the definition of a sustainable skyscraper can change.

Lever House’s Clean Dream and the Corrosion Hiding Beneath It

Lever House’s Clean Dream and the Corrosion Hiding Beneath It

The Park Avenue landmark made the glass office tower look effortless. Its ingenious washing machine kept the surface gleaming, but the experimental wall beneath it proved far less durable.

270 Park Avenue: The Skyscraper Built Above Grand Central's Trains

270 Park Avenue: The Skyscraper Built Above Grand Central's Trains

At 270 Park Avenue, the visible tower is only half the story. Its fan-shaped columns channel a 1,388-foot skyscraper through scarce openings in Grand Central’s active rail infrastructure.

Concorde: The Airliner Built Backwards From Mach 2

Concorde: The Airliner Built Backwards From Mach 2

Its needle nose, delta wing and thunderous engines made supersonic travel possible, but physics, regulation and one catastrophic accident narrowed Concorde’s world.

The New York Clock Counting Down a Carbon Budget

The New York Clock Counting Down a Carbon Budget

Above Union Square, a familiar public artwork has become a deadline in lights and a measure of whether clean energy can move faster than the clock.