Post-COVID Manhattan
The road map to development in Manhattan post-COVID
Three areas; That will be the difference from the previous version of Manhattan to the next version of Manhattan. Through looking at the whole of the Manhattan skyline it really seems that there will be three areas, that if developed, will really start to engulf the Empire State building. Each have different features and each have widely diverging purposes, but all have the potential to significantly shift the way future generations think about the Art-Deco style, as well as the city of New York in a broader sense. These are these areas:
The Grand Central-UN Headquarters Area, with One Vanderbilt and 175 Park Avenue providing, if anything, some needed style points to the area, as well as new anchor towers. Whatever happens at the 38th Street Con-Ed site and the former Pfizer headquarters will be what will flesh that area out most, providing the most substantial change to the area. lowering the average age of the building stock in the area will be crucial towards future competitiveness. The direction this area of the city will head in will be this; New commercial tenants and hotels being developed as places like the Roosevelt Hotel and the Grand Hyatt get closed down and finally torn down for much larger office towers. This will be the place where the tallest and most elite new development will take hold, so expect Midtown East to really be the center of the construction globe in the city once the West Side is done with its own phase of modernization. NoMad will also be highly-developed, with major, but still fine-grained projects in the area such as 23 East 22nd Street, 227 5th Avenue, 45 east 22nd street, 126 Madison Avenue, 30 East 29th Street, 262 5th Avenue and 3 West 29th Street. With all of these projects rising taller and taller, say good bye to the Chrysler building as a major figure in the Midtown skyline. We will miss you!
The Lower East Side-Downtown Brooklyn area, with this area supporting the kinds of wealthy, politically connected tenants that are looking for something different from the residential buildings around Central Park or the High Line. This will happen either because their old building's been crowded out by Billionaires' Row or Hudson Yards, they have just gotten bored of the same old Central Park/High Line view, or they are a politically-connected billionaire who desperately needs to hit the mattresses at City Hall so location’s crucial now. Also, expect major celebrities, tech workers, and influencers to buy into this area for that New York status symbol residence they have been looking for. People in particular who have been suffering hard in a Manhattan shoebox during this pandemic will clearly want the extra space this area provides, not to mention the potential to snap up an extra gig or two in Brooklyn that Manhattan doesn’t give them, the little quirks and character that Manhattan has lost because of the cookie-cutter development that’s happened over the years, and a view that absolutely demolishes the vistas offered by Manhattan. Needless to say, Gentrification will hit hard in this area.
The Hudson Yards-Penn Station area, with Hudson Yards, Manhattan West, 15 Penn, and whatever happens to pop up around that area to make more of a mixed-use space with a definitive industrial flair. Development will continue around the High Line, but what’s really needed here is for Hell’s Kitchen to finally just give up. I know it’s sacrilege for an average New Yorker to insist on this level of development intensity, but it’s the last old-fashioned neighborhood in marketable Manhattan that still has a sizable chunk of entire city blocks of brownstones and walk-ups. It’s high time that Midtown finally stretch the full width of the island, and through the West Side. The way this neighborhood is currently perceived and therefore planned, you guys don’t have the level of efficiency and scale you need to truly enhance things and improve your image. You haven’t learned any of the lessons that you’ve been taught by the developments surrounding you guys, and yet you still have no self-awareness to change! Hudson Yards really boxed you guys in. Past sins have come due baby, and the development gods have decided it’s time for you guys to pay up. Look, you’re going to end up in the Manhattan history books regardless of what happens to you guys today; so get outta here!
Each of these places will be built out over the next 10 years or so, and the Empire State building will need to be replaced in the capacity of Art-Deco Icon if Manhattan is going to have any kind of signature building. What really needs to happen is the MetLife North building needs to at least be completed to its original planned height of around 1,500 feet, with the rest of the 70 initial planned floors and setbacks. I would also add something of my own to the project; a 240-foot crown and a 327-foot spire to push that height above 2-k feet, to an exact height of 2,067 feet in fact. As far as location, Project Commodore and One Vanderbilt just don't do it, they're in the wrong area. Anywhere between 33rd and 59th is the wrong area because that's the midtown plateau, you can't stand out easily. Anywhere between 14th and Houston isn't good because that's basically no man's land, good luck getting past planning. The goldilocks zone is between 14th and 33rd, any of that is prime. MetLife North is smack dab in the middle of it. Anywhere in Chelsea won’t do it either because that would be weirdly placed. Anywhere in Kips Bay also would be an awkward lie. The Flatiron district provides the perfect level of context, yet you still stand out amongst the crowds of both burgeoning neighborhoods, while still bringing some more weight back to the east side.
Midtown Manhattan has been on fire for new Real Estate development projects for a while now, and the heat isn’t going away any time soon. However, from an architectural standpoint, Midtown needs some kind of Art-Deco Renaissance, and this building does that well, and serves more purposes than that as well. It would serve as a new southern beachhead for the new Midtown skyline, taking the pressure off of the Empire State building, and to a lesser extent 30 Rockefeller Center for a number of things, such as observation facilities, cultural impact, and intellectual property. Manhattan as a whole also needs a bit of a counterweight to the modernist towers of today, and this would help bring balance back in a big way, grounding a skyline that is starting to look a bit too airy. This would add a level of grit, but also elegance to the skyline that it has been missing for quite a while, getting New York City well above the 2,000-foot mark, without eliciting any kind of opposition because it’s an elegant, Art-Deco skyscraper.
Development pressure around the Empire State Building itself is not going to chill out so long as people either want easy access to the observation deck or a 5th Avenue address, and the remaining lifespan in the Empire State Building as a Midtown Manhattan icon, and indeed the icon of the entire city, is indeed coming to a well-earned close. The best thing to do at this point is to, like I said, build or complete an art-deco building larger than the Empire State building in an area that it would still stand out in. This whole argument utilizes the same ethos as in Men in Black when Agent K says he's not looking for a partner, he's training a replacement. What New York needs is not a partner for the Empire State Building on the skyline, it needs a fresh face to replace the Empire State Building that still hearkens back to the Art-Deco era. This building has all of the potential positives of the Empire State building, such as sick architecture and amazing quality, and yet has none of the current drawbacks that presently plague the building. That would allow the Empire State Building to ride off into the sunset and take the place the Chrysler building has now, while still having the knowledge that you have a major, art-deco landmark that can inspire the next few generations of New Yorkers.