
Why There Are No Skyscrapers in the Middle of Manhattan (2012) - monort
http://observer.com/2012/01/uncanny-valley-the-real-reason-there-are-no-skyscrapers-in-the-middle-of-manhattan/
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pluckytree
I had trouble getting past the first sentence. That NYC has the finest skyline
in the world is a fact? Well, I think it’s ugly and uninspiring. And that’s
not a fact. Also, seems extremely odd to not just ask developers why they
don’t build skyscrapers in the middle of the island? They would be able to
tell you whether it’s lack of feasibility or that no one has asked them to do
it.

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dkrich
I'm not an expert on New York's history, but in a general sense, I don't find
the clustering of buildings all that surprising. After all, what's the
alternative? Highrises built sporadically around the island in isolated areas?
A blanket of highrises covering the entire island? Once an area becomes
established as a center of business (for whatever reason), there's a real
benefit of living and working in close proximity so consequently other
developments take place in the area.

Apart from NYC, it seems to me that roughly every major city I have ever
visited had the exact same clustering in certain areas.

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jakevoytko
Not to mention the transportation network that has built up around these
areas. For instance, Midtown is fed by multiple train stations, a bus station,
multiple tunnels, and an incredible nexus of subway stations. You couldn't add
a new high-density area without adding it in an area that's well-served by
transportation.

Reflexively, the most likely candidate for a new skyscraper patch (just
weighed by transportation support) falls between the two peaks. 14th street is
near Penn Station, has the usual grab-bag of uptown/downtown Manhattan
subways, the PATH, is also near a tunnel, and has the L train. Not sure why
this hasn't happened past zoning reasons.

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padobson
So we should probably start a crowdfunding venture to purchase air rights
around 14th street.

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epc
With a few exceptions, air rights can only be transferred to contiguous
parcels (the two exceptions in Manhattan that I know of are the "Special West
Chelsea Air Rights District" and the midtown rezoning around Grand Central).

Curious quirk of NYC real estate: as valuable as air rights are, the City has
no formal process to track them other than through the building permit
process. There isn't an "air rights" database for example.

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Amorymeltzer
Two points:

\- It's only the "middle" if you ignore everything above 59th street. Which is
fair if you're considering skyscrapers but otherwise quite false.

\- The two peaks roughly correspond to the old city in lower Manhattan, where
the financial district is, and to the bottom of central park, where the views
are.

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AznHisoka
Heh as a long time commuter from lower Manhattan to Queens, I always
considered 59th street the top of Manhattan. Everything above it doesn't
matter (to me)

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rmxt
For all of the people that I've come across that have said this (or something
similar)...I've not once come across a satisfying reason as to why people take
_pride_ in their limited geographic or experiential knowledge of NYC and
all/more of its neighborhoods. Sure, all of your needs might be met in X part
of the city; but forgoing Y part of the city is missing out on so much more.

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CPLX
For the same reason people root for their local sports team, it's fun.

Which reminds me, New York City is the greatest city in the history of world
civilization and the rest of the country is an endless cultural desert of
strip malls and chain restaurants.

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noodles23
I thought this was a joke with the answer being "because there's a giant park
instead of buildings"

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sageikosa
The park's on the _other_ side of the second cluster of high-rises.

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krschultz
It's all zoning. Which means it's all politics. At best you can come up with
some historical explanations for how certain neighborhoods evolved, but really
it is practically random.

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jchendy
The article doesn't really answer the question. It's more like "here's some
evidence that a popular myth is incorrect."

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pc86
(2012)

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dang
Good catch. Added.

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ilzmastr
"Therein, he posited his belief in a correlation between bedrock and big
buildings, and like the Empire State Building" \- What a weird sentence. Like
a skyscraper being built successfully is some random event that can be used to
indicate bedrock. Are measurements of the bedrock really that hard to come by?

p.s. How old is the quote at the end lol? "traipsing through ... Soho to get
to work? That land was cheap, but the location was worthless"

[Some]([http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-
finance/092515...](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-
finance/092515/most-expensive-neighborhoods-manhattan.asp)) would say soho is
the most expensive neighborhood now

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potatolicious
The full quote is _" Like cavemen following mammoth across the Bering Strait,
early developers were following their prey. “Who’s moving north?” Mr. Barr
said. “It’s the wealthy and the middle class. If you’re an insurance salesman,
do you really want to be traipsing through the slums of Five Points or the
factories of Soho to get to work?"_

The author is talking about the historical drivers of Midtown's development.

Soho has only been an expensive neighborhood for ~15-20 years, a good century
after the rise of Midtown. Back then it was a light industrial district of
warehouses and factories with dirty streets, high crime, and high noise. It's
important to note that this is pre-containerization, so ships from all over
the world docked along the East River and Hudson River, supplying and shipping
to/from the factories of Lower Manhattan. The streets were filthy and filled
with heavy freight, and its main redeeming value is proximity to the ports.

After containerization and the ports moved away, Soho fell into disrepair as
industry moved to be closer to supply lines. In the 60s and 70s artists took
over many of the spaces because they were big but the area was undesirable
enough to be affordable. It wasn't until the 90s that the area started being
gentrified, and it wasn't until the 00s that the area became outrageously
expensive.

Ditto Five Points, which doesn't even exist as a discernible neighborhood
anymore. Nowadays it's the giant court house complex, but back then it was a
poor and dangerous neighborhood.

The NYC from 2000-2016 is not at all like the NYC from the 70s and before.

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ilzmastr
Thank you. Makes sense.

