Download Walking Tour 3 Prompt and Handouts 2016

Walking Tour #3 Reflection Prompt
History of RED in NYC
Several large grid-breaking projects shape the character of midtown Manhattan. Pick one that
you've visited on this walking tour and highlight what you think of the way in which it does or
doesn't relate to the grid-based area around it.
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Your answers should be no more than 500 words. Please include a photo of your journey with
your write-up.
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Submittal Instructions:
•! Hard copy: Please bring a hard copy to class on November 28th and place at
front of lecture hall before or after lecture.
•! Electronically: Please submit before November 28th 9AM on CourseWorks
in the Assignment tab prior to the start of class. Please label your assignment
PLANA6272_Walking Tour 3_Last Name_FirstName (i.e.
PLANA6272_Walking Tour 3_Ascher_Kate). Word or PDF is acceptable.
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WALKING(TOUR(#3(
History(of(Real(Estate(Development(in(NYC(
WALKING TOUR #3
MAP LINK
A. Hotel Pennsylvania
The Hotel Pennsylvania, located across the street from Penn Station and Madison
Square Garden, was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and operated by Ellsworth
Statler. It opened on January 25, 1919 and was designed by the firm of McKim,
Mead & White, which also designed the original Pennsylvania Station located
across the street.
Source
B. Penn Station, Two Penn Plaza & Madison Square Garden
Penn Station is the primary train station in New York City and has 21 tracks
connected to 7 tunnels. The station is owned by Amtrak although the MTA, NJ
Transit, and the Long Island Railroad all use the station.
The original Station was inspired by the Gare d'Orsay in Paris and was constructed
by the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1901 to 1910. After a decline in passenger
usage during the 1950s, in exchange for the air-rights above, the original station
was demolished in 1963 and replaced in 1969 with the current station with
Madison Square Garden and Two Penn Plaza built above it.
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C. New York Times Building
The New York Times Building, completed in 2007, was a joint venture of The New
York Times Company, Forest City Ratner and ING Real Estate. The site was
obtained by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) through eminent
domain. With a mandate to acquire and redevelop blighted properties in Times
Square, ten existing buildings were condemned by the ESDC and purchased from
owners. Once the 80,000 square foot site was assembled, it was leased to The New
York Times Company and Forest City Ratner for $85.6 million over 99 years.
Additionally, The New York Times Company also received $26.1 million in tax
breaks.
The 52-story tower was designed by Renzo Piano and cost $850 million.
Source
D. Port Authority Bus Terminal
The Port Authority Bus Terminal is a central transit hub for commuter and and
long-distance buses. Serving about 8,000 buses and 225,000 people on an average
weekday and more than 65 million people a year, the terminal is the largest in the
United States and the busiest in the world by volume of traffic.
By 1939, growing interstate bus traffic was creating congestion in New York City.
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed a committee of City officials to resolve the
issue. Solutions that involved consolidating the eight separate bus terminals that
served the city into a single larger one were opposed by the smaller terminals. In
1946, Mayor William O'Dwyer supported legislation that prohibited the additional
construction of individual bus stations in Midtown. This decision paved the way
politically for the Port Authority Bus Terminal to be built.
After a two year construction period, the Port Authority Bus Terminal was
completed in 1950 and cost $24 million.
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E. 4 Times Square
4 Times Square (the Condé Nast Building) was completed in 2000 as part of the
Times Square/42nd Street redevelopment project. The 48-story, 1.6 million square
foot building was designed by Fox & Fowle and is owned by the Durst
Organization.
Major Tenants:
Condé Nast Publications.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
NASDAQ MarketSite.
H&M.
Source
F. 1 Bryant Park
The Bank of America Tower/ 1 Bryant Park was completed in 2009 for a cost of $1
billion. The 55-story building contains 2.1 million square feet of office space
serviced by 52 elevators.
The building was designed by COOKFOX Architects with a number of
environmentally conscious features, earning its LEED Platinum rating, the first
skyscraper to do so.
Automatic lighting system that adjusts to daylight levels
Automatic temperature controls
Insulated glazing (windows) that limits heat loss/gain and maximizes
natural light
Rainwater capture system
Recycled and recyclable building materials
Concrete manufactured with slag, a byproduct of blast furnaces that
reduces the total amount of concrete needed and carbon dioxide
emissions during the concrete manufacturing process
Carbon dioxide sensors (regulate fresh air ventilation)
Underfloor air system
Ice battery cooling system (produces and stores ice during off-peak hours
and uses it help cool the building during peak load)
Cogeneration plant
Despite all of this, New York Magazine in its August 12, 2013 issue exposed the fact
that the building uses twice as much energy per square foot as the Empire State
Building.
Source
G. Bryant Park
Bryant Park is a 9.6 acre privately-managed public park located between Fifth and
Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets. Although part of the New York
City Department of Parks and Recreation, Bryant Park is managed by a private notfor-profit corporation, the Bryant Park Corporation (BPC). The park is cited as a
model for the success of public-private partnerships.
The area was originally designated as a public space in 1686. It eventually served
as a graveyard in 1823 until 1840 when the bodies were relocated elsewhere. This
same land was set aside as a park in 1847 and was named Reservoir Square after
the nearby Croton Reservoir. The park was renamed Bryant Park after the editor
and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant.
Although the park was the site of a number of historical moments, during the early
20th century the park fell in to disrepair and was rehabilitated and reopened by
Robert Moses in 1934. The park again suffered from neglect and crime during the
1970s. Throughout the late 1970s to early 1990s, Bryant Park underwent a series
of renovations to improve its aesthetics, amenities, safety, and relationship to the
surrounding neighborhood. The expansion of the adjacent New York Public Library
was coordinated with the park’s renovation such that Bryant Park is built entirely
over an underground structure which houses the New York Public Library's
archives.
Although Bryant Park is a public park, BPC accepts no public funds, and operates
the park on assessments on surrounding property within the Business
Improvement District, fees from concessionaires, and revenues generated by
public events.
Source
H. New York Public Library
The organizers of the New York Public Library chose a central site available at the
two-block section of Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets, then occupied
by the no-longer-needed Croton Reservoir. Dr. John Shaw Billings, the first director
of the library, created an initial design that became the basis of the current
building. Following a competition among the city's most prominent architects,
Carrère and Hastings was selected to design and construct the building. The
cornerstone was laid in May 1902. In 1910, the 75 miles of shelves were installed
and it took an additional year to move all the 1,000,000 books in. The library cost
$9 million to build and the Beaux-Arts design and was the largest marble structure
up to that time in the United States.
In the 1980s the library expanded to add more than 125,000 square feet and miles
of bookshelf space to make room for future acquisitions. This expansion was
coordinated with the redevelopment of Bryant Park and was built below the
current park.
Source
I. Grand Central Terminal
The current Grand Central Terminal, located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue, was
completed in 1913, replacing the pre-existing depot and station. Architectural
firms Reed & Stem and Warren & Wetmore collaborated on the terminal’s design.
Key features were the Beaux-Arts style, electrified train systems, and the burial of
the Park Avenue rail yard. This Park Avenue tunnel encouraged the high-end real
estate development that the area is known for today. The terminal was also
designed to be able to support a future tower being built on top of it.
In the 1940s and 1950s, rail traffic declined as highway and airline incentives
increased. With the reduced traffic Grand Central became a target for demolition
(similarly to Penn Station) with the idea that it either be replaced by or
substantially altered for a tower. After the completion of the adjacent Pan Am
Tower (now MetLife), another proposal wanted to use the pre-constructed tower
supports and build on top of the terminal but the design would not have preserved
the facade or the Main Waiting Room. It was the opposition of Jackie Kennedy and
the NYC Landmarks Preservation Committee designating it a landmark that
ultimately saved Grand Central.
Fun Fact:
During his time in office, President Franklin Roosevelt utilized a secret rail line,
Track 61, which provided an underground connection between Grand Central and
the nearby Waldorf-Astoria hotel. There was even a large freight elevator at the
Waldorf’s end of the track, big enough to fit the president’s Pierce Arrow
limousine, which allowed FDR to travel to and from New York in secrecy—quite
handy for clandestine missions as he led the U.S. war effort during World War II.
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J. Chrysler Building
The 77-story, 1.2 million square foot Chrysler Building was the world's tallest
building for 11 months before the Empire State Building surpassed it in 1931. It is
still the tallest brick building in the world, even though it does have an internal
steel skeleton and was the world’s first man-made structure to break 1000 feet.
Designed by architect William Van Alen for Walter P. Chrysler in the Art Deco style,
the building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
Source
K. Tudor City
Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the southern edge of Turtle Bay on
the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, near Turtle Bay's border with Kips
Bay. It was the first residential skyscraper complex in the world. It is bordered by
40th Street to the south, First Avenue to the east, Second Avenue to the west, and
43rd Street to the north.
In the 1920s, the real estate developer Fred F. French sought to lure tenants to
Tudor City, his vision of an urban Utopia — a "human residential enclave" that
boasted "tulip gardens, small golf courses, and private parks." The complex was
built to bring in middle-class residents who had begun leaving Manhattan for the
other boroughs and the suburbs.
Source
L. Headquarters of the United Nations
The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed in stages with the core
complex completed between 1948 and 1952. The Headquarters occupies a site
beside the East River, on between 17 and 18 acres of land purchased from the real
estate developer, William Zeckendorf, Sr. Nelson Rockefeller arranged this
purchase, after an initial offer to locate it on the Rockefeller family estate of Kykuit
was rejected as being too isolated from Manhattan. The US$8.5 million (adjusted
by inflation US$83.4 million) purchase was then funded by his father, John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., who donated it to the city. The Rockefeller family owned the Tudor
City Apartments across First Avenue from the slaughterhouses. Wallace Harrison,
the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family and brother-in-law to
a Rockefeller daughter, served as the Director of Planning for the United Nations
Headquarters. His firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, oversaw the execution of the
design.
Source
M. The Waldorf – Astoria Hotel
The current hotel is not the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel built by cousins William
Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV in the 1890s at 33rd and 5th Ave. That hotel
was sold to the Empire State Building developers and was closed and demolished
in 1929.
The new hotel, located just north of Grand Central Terminal, opened in 1931 and
was developed by building atop the existing railroad tracks leading to the station,
utilizing "air rights" to the space above the tracks. The 47-story hotel was the
tallest and largest hotel in the world, and remained so for a number of years. It
was also the first hotel to offer room service.
The hotel had a direct access to Grand Central Terminal and an elevator large
enough to accommodate the President’s limousine.
The hotel was named an official New York City Landmark in 1993.
Source
N. Seagram Building
The 38-story Seagram Building was completed in 1958. Designed by Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, the building is representative of the international
style of architecture and set a precedent for the glass façade aesthetic.
The plaza in front is noteworthy because its success influenced the change in the
1961 NYC zoning code to incentivize developers to include privately owned public
spaces in their projects.
Source
O. Lever House
Completed in 1952, 24-story Lever House was a departure from the rest of the
architecture along Park Avenue at the time. Designed in the International Style,
Lever House was only the second glass façade in the City. Its design included a
large plaza at street level to capitalize on the 1916 NYC zoning allowance for no
setbacks provided that the building cover only 25% of the lot area.
The building was designated a New York City landmark in 1982 and was added to
the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
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P. Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is comprised of 19 commercial buildings totaling 8 million
square feet of space and covering 22 acres from 48th to 51st between 5th and 6th
Avenues. John D. Rockefeller leased the land from Columbia University with initial
plans to build an opera house but changed plans after the 1929 Stock Market
Crash. Rockefeller opted to solely finance the project using a line of credit from
MetLife Insurance and sale of stock from his oil company. The initial cost of
acquisition, demolition and construction was $250 million. It was the largest
private building project ever undertaken in modern times. Construction of the first
14 buildings occurred from 1930 to 1939 and employed 40,000 people. The
remaining buildings were not built until the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1985, Columbia University sold the land to Rockefeller Center for $400 million.
After changing hands several times, in 2000, Jerry Speyer of Tishman Speyer
bought the land and the original 14 buildings for $1.85 billion.
Rockefeller Center is known for Radio City Music Hall the prominent GE Building,
its sculptures, underground shopping concourse, and the ice rink.
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