Conclusion: 2020-2024
A nationwide rise in the cost of construction in this decade was partly the result of the Covid pandemic that struck in early 2020. An early lumber shortage abated, but metals, manpower, and specialized products remained scarce during the pandemic and created a backlog of demand to be dealt with later. It wasn’t clear when ‘later’ would be. The main exception on Forty-second Street to the lull in construction during the decade is an apartment house called the Ellery, at 312 West, designed by Handel Architects and first occupied in 2024. It has retail floors below 330 apartments on Forty-second Street and a lower wing on Forty-third. Above the retail premises and the apartments is a screen of vertical elements. Amenity spaces, perhaps behind the screen, connect the tower on Forty-second Street above the retail podium with a seven-story portion on quieter West Forty-third Street.
Fig. 1 At right: The Ellery. Handel Architects, 2024. Center: Kaufman’s Army-Navy Store, tenements, Holy Cross, and the Ivy tower. Photo: Author 2025
The glass-faced residential tower contrasts dramatically with Kaufman’s Army & Navy red, white, and blue striped store in the adjacent tenement. The Ellery’s developers were Taconic Partners and National Real Estate Advisors working with the 1199 Service Employees International Union-- health care workers who will not be housed in its expensive apartments. DeSimone consulting engineers and Triton Construction, general contractor, were additional participants. The apartments exemplify the current luxury model but they include eighty-three ‘affordable’ units. In the building one will find the expected amenities such as a concierge, a rooftop pool, a spa with fitness facilities and a sauna and name-brand appliances.
For most renters-- those who cannot afford new buildings with saunas or anything close-- the prospects were bleak. The 421-a provision for lower-income rentals in new high-rise apartment houses with over 300 units, much used on West Forty-second Street, expired in June 2022, leaving builders wary of making new investments in that building type. The investors in the Ellery had filed plans before the expiration. But even their less costly units are not affordable for most people because 421-a rents are related to the median income of an area, and the medium incomes of neighbors in the new buildings and nearby are very high.
(https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/construction-development/construction-costs-keep-rising-next-year-cre-might-have-it-worst-110488?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_52130&utm_content=outbound_link_4&utm_medium=email accessed 10 11 2021 https://newyorkyimby.com/2022/12/312-23wt-43rd-street-tops-out-n-midtown-manhattan.html accessed 12 12 2023)
In 2021, at the start of the second year of the pandemic, only a small percentage of people came to the workplace each day. Fear, isolation, and the absence of physical and proximate social life affected young and old. That was before medical authorities approved vaccines and made them widely available in the spring. A good many workers had left the city to benefit from lower housing costs elsewhere while remaining connected to work via their computers. That is why apartments had suddenly become available, and at temporarily lower rents. It also explains why hardly anyone contemplated new construction; landlords were concerned about filling existing space, especially commercial space. Even when vaccines were available, many office employees wanted to continue to work at home. (https://commercialobserver.com/2022/01/sl-green-building-sales/ accessed 1 11 2022)
The good news for renters did not last long because as other people slowly returned to the city, there were too few apartments to meet the demand. Anyone but a very rich person could not anticipate suitable apartments appearing soon. By the end of the year, the greater metropolitan area of New York had registered rent increases for apartment houses of about thirty percent. The market value for properties that include rental apartments increased 8.2 % from fiscal year 2022, only 0.2 % lower than the pre-pandemic value. (https://www.google.com/search?q=https&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS865US865&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 accessed 1 24 2022). The chief executive officer of Silverstein Properties said that leasing had improved by three hundred percent over the previous quarter, and considered the rental market recovered. Brookfield Properties was equally confident. But while apartment houses all over the city were full, that meant few vacancies to house anyone else, especially those with incomes too low for the shiny high-rises on Forty-second Street.
(https://www.globest.com/2022/01/10/apartment-rents-cooled-in-december-after-an-eye-popping-year/?kw=Apartment%20Rents%20Cooled%20In%20December%20After%20An%20Eye-Popping%20Year&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=spotlightonalert&utm_content=20220110&utm_term=rem accessed 1 10 2022 ; https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/economy/were-recovered-nycs-cre-leaders-say-everything-but-office-occupancy-is-all-the-way-back-111429?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54479&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54479&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 1 6 2022. For official statistics supplied by city Comptroller Brad Lander, see New York by the Numbers: Monthly Economic and Fiscal Outlook, circulated on 2 7 2022 when they were accessed at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGmtrHqGNGtqCrhZPSQxrkRSMJG)
Less visible changes occurred, including periodic revisions to the City’s administrative, plumbing, building, mechanical, and fuel gas codes that have always underlain architectural activity. The code revisions in 2020 were the first comprehensive ones since 2014 and went into effect at the start of 2022. They affected emergency response, fire protection, aspects of transportation, accessibility, sustainability, construction and safety, and internal elements such as elevators and boilers. Maintenance and inspection were emphasized.
(https://www.amny.com/news/city-council-passes-bill-updating-nyc-construction-codes-what-this-means-for-new-yorkers/ accessed 10 8 2021)
Other changes at the end of the 20-teens had social consequences, sometimes affecting Forty-second Street’s buildings in the 2020s. Inflation almost suddenly soared in late 2021, affected by supply chain problems and by insufficient housing under the luxury level. When a moratorium on rent increases expired in January 2022, both honest and unscrupulous landlords prepared to evict tenants who had few or no other options. Residents of the Hotel Carter suffered so much from lack of maintenance by the Chetrit Group owned by two brothers, that the city filed a lawsuit against the landlords.
(The Slice by Bisnow [email protected] via sparkpostmail.com, accessed 7 21 2025)
The social composition of publicly traded companies, brokers, and developers remained largely white, but by 2021, the country’s and region’s racial and ethnic composition had changed significantly. There was pressure--- primarily from Federal agencies and institutional investors that had social goals--to diversify membership on boards of publicly-traded companies, including commercial real estate firms. Not all of them complied, but public discussion caused people to acknowledge what business-as-usual had ignored. After a succession of police actions resulting in the death of African-Americans, pressure increased to do at least some window-dressing. Suddenly, more brown faces appeared in online images of real estate brokers and related professionals, including participants in public presentations. People other than Whites became more prominent in advertisements as home and apartment-buyers, or as friendly spokesmen for companies related to building. Businesses and institutions hired consultants especially in 2021 to enlighten and encourage their members to reconsider past practices and develop new ones to overcome racial disparities, prejudices, and outmoded institutional norms. With remarkable speed, online real estate newsletters added articles about inclusive hiring or the professional development of previously overlooked talent. All the same, brokerages and private developers often declined to answer questions posed by the press about employee race and ethnicity. Then, by late 2023, real estate publications assessed the potential for increasing diversity in view of a Supreme Court decision prohibiting considerations of race in university admissions. While some firms saw inclusion as advantageous, others preferred to do business as usual. Soon after the start of 2025, the new Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate concurred with President Donald Trump and his cabinet in dismantling requirements for diversity, equity, and inclusion wherever they could.
(https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/commercial-real-estate/diversity-study-analysis-race2019-accountability-111062?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_53420&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_53420&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 11 29 2021. https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/commercial-real-estate/political-backlash-against-dei-having-a-chilling-effect-on-cres-diversity-push-121882?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_72712&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email, accessed 12 2 2023)
The market value of all real property in the city increased by 8.2 % for fiscal year 2023, 2.1 % above what it had been before the pandemic in fiscal year 2021, but there were many office vacancies, and a third of the leases in large buildings in Manhattan were to expire by 2024. What would landlords need to do in order to attract people to return from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday? No one had an answer other than coercion. (NYT 7 2 2021, p. A18) The construction industry also faced uncertainty, even though work continued on the few projects that were underway along Forty-second Street. According to Bloomberg.com, a business blog, the pandemic had “cost the city more than $850 million in property tax revenue for fiscal year 2022.”
(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-07/pandemic-s-toll-on-nyc-office-market-will-last-years-state-says?cmpid=BBD100721_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=211007&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily, accessed 10 7 2021. https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/construction-development/nyc-construction-employment-to-hit-lowest-level-since-2014-110577?utm_source=outbound_pub_90&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_52483&utm_content=outbound_link_9&utm_medium=email accessed 10 23 21 https://www.globest.com/2022/02/01/uncertainty-continues-to-haunt-the-office-market/?kw=Uncertainty%20Continues%20to%20Haunt%20the%20Office%20Market&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=nationalamalert&utm_content=20220201&utm_term=rem&enlcmp=nltrplt4 accessed 2 1 2022; this evaluated the situation at the end of 2021)
Even when vaccines arrived, some office staff hesitated to stop working at home, and employers might not have wanted to demand in-person work at a time of labor shortages. Empty office cubicles couldn’t bring back the city’s daily crowds that gave business to restaurants, public transit, and shops. But some older office buildings, including entirely vacant ones, were rescued at least temporarily by being turned into shelter accommodation for migrants who had been sent to New York City by southwestern state officials. The Candler Building had lost its giant McDonald’s and probably all its tenants due to the pandemic, and by 2023, the building was taken over by the City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, supported by the City’s Emergency Management Office and associated agencies. It had to be provided quickly with sleeping rooms, health screening rooms, counseling areas, and staff to send the migrants elsewhere if they wished to leave. This was the result of an emergency declaration by Mayor Eric Adams in the previous October, when public and humanitarian objections to barracks-style tents in remote locations became too loud to ignore. (NYT 3 23 2023, pp. A1, A13). McDonald’s became a food court with an uninviting interior barrier wall.
The people who had shown up in the workplace earliest were primarily those in essential positions, including hospital personnel, mass transit employees, police and firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, maintenance workers----in general, the municipal and non-profit employees who keep the city running and who cannot work from home. They did not usually work on Forty-second Street anyway. Many in maintenance and hotel reception, for instance, who did work there had lost their jobs when almost no one was working on site; those laid off included building cleaners, security personnel, hotel and restaurant staff, and building engineers. Forgoing the office was an important benefit for parents of children and those living with people with disabilities, since schools closed and unrelated caregivers were not always available. By contrast, white-collar workers in financial services were rarely in their midtown offices. Gone were the people shopping or having manicures at lunchtime, the good old boys at the bar after work, the executives dining at steakhouses, the employees enjoying hamburgers and tacos. Bars and restaurants and theaters closed on the ground floors of Forty-second Street’s buildings
In support of remote work, the word zoom became a proper noun rather than just a verb, as skype had been earlier. The hospitality industry therefore suffered, from fast food chains that catered to tourist families to elegant restaurants and cocktail lounges, from Airbnb hosts to convention hotels. The Hilton Times Square hotel above and behind Madame Tussaud’s closed for over a year until tourism revived in 2022, laying off two hundred employees and returning its keys to the investor, while other hotels saw their guest lists shrink. But tourism did revive, and the city saw plans for new hotels, though not on Forty-second Street.
(https://therealdeal.com/2021/01/06/hilton-times-square-owner-take-my-hotel-please/ accessed 1 7 2021. The Hilton reopened on Nov. 1, 2022 after having been sold to Newbond Investors and Apollo Global Management for about 35% of what Sunstone Hotel Investors had paid for it: https://www.globest.com/2022/06/09/another-manhattan-hotel-trades-for-bargain-basement-price/?kw=Another%20Manhattan%20Hotel%20Trades%20for%20Bargain-Basement%20Price&et=editorial&bu=REM&cn=20220609&src=EMC-Email&pt=NewYork accessed 6 9 2022)
Office rental prospects gradually improved, too. Cushman & Wakefield, a prominent real estate services firm, was optimistic before the omicron variant virus appeared, noting that the country’s economy had recovered just over three quarters of its lost office jobs, and that leases of more than four years were more than three quarters of those signed in the first half of 2021. On Forty-second Street, leasing was generally active in the most up-to-date buildings, and in the Salmon Tower that was 99 percent leased in 2023, but not in all the others. The Hive, futilely renamed Times Square West, is a property on Eighth Avenue’s north side at 303 West that was being offered for sale in the spring of 2024. A remodeled pair of retail and office buildings, thirteen and six stories tall, it had no office tenants, just storefronts housing fast food shops.
(For Cushman & Wakefield: https://www.globest.com/2021/08/24; Paul Bergeron, https://www.globest.com/2021/10/12/manhattan-office-leasing-has-best-quarter-since-q1-2020, accessed 10 12 2021, with a similar report by Matthew Rothstein, https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/return-to-work-levels-post-pandemic-high110514?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_52180&utm_content=story&utm_medium=email accessed 10 12 2021. For a perspective wider than Manhattan’s, see https://www.globest.com/2022/02/04/finance-short-term-leases-complicate-underwriting/?kw=Short-Term%20Leases%20Complicate%20Underwriting&et=editorial&bu=REM&cn=20220204&src=EMC-Email&pt=NewYork accessed 2 4 2022. For the Salmon Tower: Jack Rogers, “Tishman, Silverstein Land $330 M Refi for 42nd Street Tower,” https://www.globest.com /2023/07/07. The owners also signed a lease with clothier Michael Kors in 2024. https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/manhattan-office-leasing-slowed-even-more-in-q1- 23587?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_75922&utm_content=story&utm_medium=email accessed 3 31 24. For the Hive: https://www.bisnow/new-york/news/capital-marketd/midtowns-the-hive-complex-marketed-for-sale-by-cushman-wakefield-123723?utm_sourve=o accessed 4 10 2024)
Thanks to almost eighty percent initial vaccination in the city, theaters, cinemas, clubs, and offices reopened, sometimes with limits on attendance. Before the pandemic struck, the Lyric Theater prospered with performances of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” and managed to reopen performances in late 2021, closing only briefly when cast members caught the virus. But in the theater district as a whole, business was a fraction of what it had been owing to the scarcity of tourists, so landlords had to reduce rents to attract tenants
. With a view toward the future, Beyer Blinder Belle, specialists in adapting older buildings, designed a glamorous remodeling of the Times Square Theater at 215 West for Stillman Development International LLC and the South Korean financial firm Daishin Securities Company. The plan was to alter it into a four-story commercial space with several retail floors. The architects planned an ingenious new design to suit a seventy-three-year lease, with several retail floors. By the end of 2021, the limestone façade was braced for separation from the rest of the building so that it could be raised five feet by hydraulic lifts. The architects retained the façade’s columns and designed a glass enclosure for them that would project over the street in order to tuck retail premises under the projection, replacing theater entrances with revenue-producing elements. Two stories were to be added to the façade---glass-enclosed prisms and a curved element. Interior features including plaster decorations and a sail vault, the proscenium, and the dome of over thirty feet in diameter were being conserved and stored offsite for re-installation. The architects envisioned a roof garden, a feature of theaters a century earlier. But by January 2023, the project halted for lack of tenants, and nothing was done with the building after that. In May 2024, there was a proposal by the lease holders to build apartments on the site, above the theater. At the end of 2024, a barrier protected the building from passers-by but no work was being done.
(https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/future-nyc/interview-armen-boyajian-explains-times-square-theater-become-high-tech-brand-building-opportunity/26241 accessed 1 26 22; https://www.timessquaretheater42.com/ accessed 1 26 2022 (Stillman Development International site; https://www.beyerblinderbelle.com/projects/213_times_square_theater accessed 1 26 2022; The Times Square Theater at 47th Street was elevated thirty feet in early January, 2022 in connection with a 46-story tower with multiple uses. https://abc7ny.com/palace-theatre-lift-times-square-construction/11438262/ accessed 1 26 2022; https://aasarchitecture.com/2019/06/renovation-of-the-times-square-theater.html/ with further information about the firms doing the conservation work; accessed 7 23 2022; Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Times Square Theater - Wikipedia accessed 12 22 2024.)
Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted on reopening the schools, for the students’ education and their mental health, and because their parents were needed in the workplace. Universities reopened, specifying vaccinations and masks. At last, nursing homes required their personnel to be inoculated although some employees found excuses or tried to. None of this was enough to rescue businesses that had closed for lack of personnel, lack of income to pay rent, and of course, lack of customers. Moreover, about a fifth of city residents refused vaccinations or booster shots because of misinformation, ignorance of science, propaganda against a Democratic administration’s proposals, fear, and stubbornness. When flare-ups occurred, the unvaccinated in hospitals exhausted and threatened the stalwart health-care personnel who continued to care for people who—some might say uncharitably-- had brought problems on themselves.
These matters were not resolved when in late fall of 2021, the omicron variant appeared, reversing much of the progress that had been made in reopening the city. Residents and visitors canceled Christmas and New Year’s Eve reservations that had helped entertainment and food-service businesses to survive the usually slow wintertime months. Doctors advised people to avoid New Year’s Eve celebration at Times Square even if proof of vaccination were required. People came, nevertheless, to see a ball twelve feet in diameter, made of Waterford crystal triangles set in metal frames that were wired into the surface. (https://www.amny.com/news/ready-to-drop-new-years-eve-ball-installed-with-new-crystals-in-times-square/ accessed 12 28 2021)
Bryant Park planned its twentieth season of a “Winter Village” with booths owned by small businesses, including minority owners, who sold crafts and food until January 2, 2022. It reappeared in the next years. People tended to feel safer while shopping outdoors. A 17,000 square foot ice-skating rink is a wintertime feature of the park, open by reservation and cost-free to those who bring their own skates. In warmer weather, the Library placed magazine racks and bookshelves along the paths, for use on the honor system.
(Fig. 2. Bryant Park outdoor reading room, Photo: Author, August 17, 2025)
(Figs. 3 Bryant Park, Magazine racks (at left). Photo: Author, August 4, 2025)
For those who continued to work in midtown, in 2022, artist Nick Cave embellished the tunnel between the subway station there and the Times Square shuttle with exuberant glass mosaics fabricated by the venerable Franz Mayer company in Germany. Faintly human figures, and animated shapes, some made of multiple objects, others of hairy feathers or feathery hairs fly and cavort on the walls.
(Fig 4 Nick Cave, “Each One, Every One, Equal All,” 2022. Times Square-42nd Street subway station, detail. Photo: Author 2023)
A video shows people dressed in garments of these types, moving as the mosaics seem to do. (NYT 5 17 2022, pp. C1, C8). Normally-dressed working people were pleased with a practical improvement: the start of work on a new passageway from the 7 train’s platform to the 42nd Street subway station’s mezzanine. It was finished a year later under budget and on time.
(https://gothamist.com/news/grand-central-passageway-opens-to-ease-7-train-crowds-1-year-after-priests-blessing?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=nypr-email&utm_campaign=Gothamist+Daily+Newsletter&utm_term=https://gothamist.com/news/grand-central-passageway-opens-to-ease-7-train-crowds-1-year-after-priests-blessing&utm_id=422312&sfmc_id=53055845&utm_content=2025225&nypr_member=True accessed 2 26 2025)
As the pandemic waned, people gradually emerged from what had been small social circles, or hardly any contacts at all. Real estate firms, architects, investors, retailers, restaurateurs, mass transit specialists and others tried to predict the future. The giant Gensler firm wrote about people “reevaluating their relationship with cities,” and assessing “what they need to be happy and whether they can find more affordable and fulfilling lives” away from cities. Many people found remote work to be life-enhancing in various ways, but large banks and corporations began by mid-decade to require in-office work. Class A buildings filled readily, as did some Class B properties in areas near public transportation, especially if the interiors had been upgraded, but the decreased value of lower-class office buildings meant six percent less tax revenue anticipated for the city in the 2022 fiscal year budget. When in 2021 Yellowstone Real Estate Investments acquired the M&T Bank’s mortgage note, for instance, its value was considered to be $161,000000-- well below its assessed value of $196.700,000.
(https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGllVlDdZGPNRMrlzhtLJwfLXNw accessed 12 16 2021) https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/deal-sheet/this-weeks-ny-deal-sheet-march-29-2022- 112437?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_56548&utm_content=outbound_link_2&utm_medium=email .accessed 3 31 2022)
One of several complications of return-to-office mandates for workers who had moved away was the aforementioned acute shortage of housing that a middle-class person could afford. Firms connected to real estate evaluated the potential appeal of in-town apartments and of office buildings converted to residential use, but that process requires hearings and permits and code compliance and zoning adjustment-- harder to achieve than to conceive. Many office buildings are unsuited to residential conversion unless light courts are carved into their interiors. But gradually, by the end of 2024, large firms such as the Durst Organization identified some of its generation-old holdings on Third Avenue as suited to conversion into apartments, although buildings on Forty-second Street itself remained primarily business premises. The Dursts’ 675 Third Avenue was under contract by the end of 2024 with David Werner Real Estate Investments and Metro Loft Management who proposed to create about 430 rental units there, thanks to various city incentives and a suitable floor plan. The same entrepreneurs planned to convert the two former Pfizer Buildings in August 2024, with the expectation of about 1600 apartments there by the end of 2026. (See photo at start of conversion, Chap.9, Fig. 13) The large Gensler firm of architects and planners was at work on this project. A quarter of the new units would be “affordable” (to the prosperous). 219 East would be given ten more stories and both facades along the building line would be re-clad identically. Metro Loft Development LLC and David Werner Real Estate Investments made renderings available in early 2025.
(I owe thanks to Jon McMillan for information about buildings unsuited to conversion. For Durst’s potential conversions, see now.com/new-york/news/office/demand-is-rising-for-third-avenue-offices-but-not-for-the-entire-corridor-128768?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_85026&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email accessed 4 3 2025. For the plans at 675 Third and at the former Pfizer building, see https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/capital-markets/werner-and-berman-land-90m-for-another-conversion-project-128799?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_85099&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email accessed 4 7 2025. NYT 5 16 2025 pp. B1, B4. For 675 Third Avenue, see https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2025/01/14/david-werner-buying-dursts-675-third-avenue/(https://newyorkyimby.com/2025/02/rendering-revealed-for-former-pfizer-hqs-residential-conversion-at-219-229-east-42nd-street-in-midtown-east-manhattan.html accessed 4 7 2025.)
City-wide unemployment was another threat to prosperity and the tax base. As the Covid threat lessened, unemployment fell and there was a labor shortage in several industries but those were not prominent on Forty-second Street.
(https://commercialobserver.com/2022/02/nyc-commercial-properties-kept-92-percent-of-pre-covid-value/ accessed 2 17 2022)
Despite ongoing uncertainty, some recent buildings on or near Forty-second Street appeared to be doing well. That is because tenants had rented space in anticipation of an eventual return of workers to the office. Leasing was declared back to normal, even though actual usage was down, but building owners could not guess how much space would be leased when the present contracts expired.
(https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/economy/were-recovered-nycs-cre-leaders-say-everything-but-office-occupancy-is-all-the-way-back-111429?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54479&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54479&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 1 6 2022; for the rosier perspective before the Omicron variant virus appeared, see, NYT 8 11 2021, p. B6. “Manhattan Office Leasing Falls Below 2020s Pace,” https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/manhattan-april-office-leasing-118749?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_67008&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email 5/1/2023 accessed 5/2/2023
Face rents---those that people sign up to pay---did not all go down, though some did. Some actually increased slightly. There were six leases with starting rents per square foot above $200 and over one hundred sixty for more than $100, some of them on Forty-second Street. But in order to secure those face rents, landlords often had to pay for renovating the property to suit the new tenants’ demands. Sometimes they paid for moving expenses or provided a period of free rent. The borough-wide average of money that landlords took home was therefore down by about seven percent during 2021.
By early 2023, the vacancy rate for office space in Manhattan overall had reached record heights. New buildings or renovated older spaces had come on the market, tenants in older buildings were escaping to newer and better equipped premises, firms with too much space were subleasing large quantities of it, and landlords were being pressed to create more tenant amenities or to offer rent concessions to attract occupants. A dire situation faced RXR Realty, owners of 5 Times Square, where 820,000 square feet were available in the summer of 2023: only 60,000 square feet were occupied. During the following year and a half, the Empire State Development Corporation, an arm of state government, prepared plans for the conversion of the building into apartments, mostly studios renting for an average of about $2200 a month, although the size of the apartments was not specified. The conversion would be helped by proposed alterations to existing zoning and other rules. Thirty-year tax breaks for the RXR company were part of the package approved by the state’s economic development corporation which had controlled this site and those near it since the 1990s. A tenant was finally secured by late summer of 2025.
(https://es.esd.ny.gov/5-times-square-public-notices accessed 3 01 2025; NYT 5 24 2015, p. A19. RXR is collaborating with SL Green and Apollo Global Management on this project. https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/construction-development/tf-cornerstone-to-convert-billionaires-row-office-tower-to-residential-130454.)
3 Times Square, in similar straits a year earlier, had rented sufficient space to new tenants a year later, perhaps offering hope to other owners. Hope faded when 300 East, with over 230,000 square feet, was handed back to its lenders in September 2023. By the end of that year, even Class A effective rents had declined slightly throughout the country, owing to concessions that landlords had to make in order to attract tenants; the decrease was larger in Class B and C office buildings.
Many industries, including commercial real estate, tried to establish new norms in the face of many workers’ refusal to return to jobs that they had had time to assess as unsatisfactory. Reliable statistics were hard to find because optimistic predictions of a return to the office were upended by fast-spreading virus variants and the reluctance of many workers to spend five days a week behind desks in Manhattan. Owners of desirable lots had to add these new uncertainties to equations about the types and sizes of buildings to be erected. On Forty-second Street, with its highly valued land, the viable choices were limited to expensive offices, hotels, or, beyond the commercial core, high-rise apartment houses. Since a good many buildings on this street are official landmarks, the costs of litigating proposed replacements had to be factored into plans for the few remaining sites that might be redeveloped.
The Hyatt hotel closed, reopened, and was to be replaced by an office-hotel-retail building to be called 175 Park. Gradually, business at the Knickerbocker Hotel picked up (as it had not at the Hyatt) and a façade treatment was underway by 2025 when scaffolding went up over its entire surface. The Canadian-based real estate company, Ivanhoé-Cambridge which owns 1095 Sixth Avenue, alias 3 Bryant Park, improved the large building’s amenities such as a coffee bar and a new conference center, and then negotiated the refinancing of the building with the help of three banks in the United States and Canada.
(https://www.globest.com/2025/02/12/ivanho-cambridge-secures-11b-refi-for-bryant-park-tower-/?kw=Ivanhoé%3B%20Cambridge%20Secures%201.1B%20Refi%20for%20Bryant%20Park%20Tower&et=editorial&bu=REM&cn=20250212&src=EMC-Email&pt=NewYork&oly_enc_id=4013J6531689A4Y&user_id=5d52d3a109730fa7078ccfed3d4bdeb3bb7d8c24e041067f66cebb844a1df30d&slreturn=20250212161137 accessed 2 13 2025)
During the worst of the pandemic, shops that had catered to tourists suffered for a while until tourism recovered in 2024. A former Modell’s sporting goods store at 234 West became the site of a temporary exhibition of “Spectacular Costumes from Stage & Screen” for only eight weeks. Part of 200 West became a temporary pop-up display and shop for fans of a Netflix presentation called “Stranger Things.” Other retailers went out of business. Foot traffic on Forty-second Street and elsewhere in midtown declined because many office workers stayed home. The city’s tax and public transportation revenue went down when employees worked remotely or used bicycles and scooters rather than buses and subways.
(https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/fat-incentives-packages-are-keeping-manhattan-office-building-leased-111537?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54782&utm_content=outbound_link_8&utm_medium=email Miriam Hall, Jan. 18 2022 Bisnow “NYC’s Office Leasing Recovery Is Being Fueled With Piles of Landlord Cash,” accessed 1 21 2022. https://www.globest.com/2023/03/31/manhattan-office-vacancy-hits-record-high/?kw=Manhattan%20Office%20Vacancy%20Hits%20Record%20High accessed 3 31 2023. For 300 East, see https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/the-worst-is-yet-to-come-for-manhattans-distressed-office-market-120878?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_71068&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_71068&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 9 29 2023 https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/climbing-concessions-weigh-down-rents-at-top-tier-offices-122220?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_73525&utm_content=outbound_link_11&utm_medium=emai) accessed 12 20 2022
Essential as the new conditions and attitudes were to considerations of Forty-second Street’s future, even broader matters required attention. Climate change was acknowledged in many parts of the world, acutely threatening New York City where large swaths of the city may be submerged during the lifetime of existing children. Buildings of all types had to start considering additional climate goals. Owners in this age of income uncertainty would need to do expensive remodeling, according to consultants who understood long hauls and short cuts. If the City became more serious about halting climate change, it would have to mandate sustainable materials and practices beyond just outlawing new gas-powered kitchen stoves. Green retrofitting of existing buildings was likely to occur, and building owners needed to plan for it. They would also have to pay for the government’s mandates in the absence of universal subsidies or tax forgiveness. This is the situation that the Republican national administration inherited in January 2025, when its goals were publicized as being pro-business, even at the expense of the environment.
The pandemic had not directly affected new construction on Forty-second Street because most sites were already filled or had been planned. There were changes to existing buildings that were closer to twenty years old or clearly older. Four Times Square had a face-lift in 2023 and renamed itself One Five One, for 151 West Forty-second Street, to appear more current. Socony-Mobil revamped part of its lower floors. Another dramatic restyling was announced in April 2024, when Jamestown, owners of One Times Square, proposed to re-clad the building with a curtain wall, add an observation platform facing north, and present displays of commercial products in an “immersive” way inside, where there would also be a museum about the history of the neighborhood. The remodeled building was topped out by January 2024, and S9 Architecture and SCLE Architects, planned to finish the work in 2025.
(Fig. 5. Times tower with signs. At right: 151 formerly Four Times Square. Photo: Author, 8 3 2025)
Remodeling by MdeAS proceeded at the Grace Building and at 1100 Sixth Avenue where the new reflective façade was more ecologically supportive than the previous one was, since new types of glass had been developed.
(Fig. 6. Left: 1100 Sixth Avenue as re-clad by MdeAS, 2024; Grace Building with ground floor scaffold, pending completion of work by the same firm. Photo: Author, 8 16 2025)
A partnership between RFR and Signa Holdings that held the ground lease to the Chrysler Building since 2008 defaulted in part in 2023 when Sigma, an Austrian-owned firm was in financial trouble, and defaulted in 2024 for the rest; these companies’ lease had succeeded that of the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Cooper Union promised to address maintenance problems that annoyed tenants and prevented profitable full leasing.
(F1or One Times Square’s plans, see https://www.archpaper.com/2024/04/renovation-one-times-square-curtain-wall-observation-deck-immersive-experiences/?trk_msg=0FKAIJAHEK94D775JG6RSEVV8S&trk_contact=TEPFHR44CIVCNPL8VQT1VM1DKS&trk_sid=BK0AL4JHH2F1M8GONJEU70MPMK&trk_link=V6Q259JCL1R4L0T8K4LOKRB600 accessed 4 23 2024 For the Chrysler’s Austrian owner’s problem, see forbes.comsitesdereksaul/2023/12/19/new-yorks-iconic-chrysler-building-will-be-put-up-for-sale-by-insolvent-austrian-owner accessed 12 20 2023. https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/chrysler-building-could-change-hands-after-rfr-led-ownership-skips-months-of-ground-rent-126097?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_80560&utm_content=outbound_newsletter2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_80560&utm_content=outbound_newsletter2&utm_medium=email accessed 9 30 2024; https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/rfr-evicted-chrysler-building-cooper-union-127816? utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_83519&utm_content=outbound_link_8&utm_medium=email accessed 1 31 2025)
MdeAS refurbished the McGraw-Hill Building exterior, while observing the limits that governed change under the Landmarks rules. The location west of Eighth Avenue was respectable by this time, but it was not a central business block because apartment houses were its most prominent neighbors to the west. After the publishing company moved to the extension of Rockefeller Center in 1972, Group Health Insurance became the main tenant, later replaced by the Service Employees’ International Union. These organizations placed their employees in cubicles, ignoring the spacious, light-filled character of the interior floors as McGraw-Hill itself had done. The exterior was cleaned, but the interior remained cluttered. Deco Towers, the owner since 1994, and Resolution Real Estate that was to position the building in the market, required changes to the lobby which was not landmarked and thus could be altered. It had been of adequate size for employees of one corporation in a building partly occupied by printing machinery but would be cramped for the anticipated new population in a residential building-- soon changed to an all-office building. Tenants would want plenty of light permeating the floors, spaces for group meetings, fitness facilities perhaps, and---a matter of controversy---a new lobby. The controversy was resolved in 2021 in the investors’ favor, and although its new form had not yet been decided, it would certainly not be restored to its original appearance. It would have to be more spacious to handle more office personnel. Or would it, if the tenants’ companies allowed people to work remotely in the future for at least part of the week? The owners wanted to remove the new ceiling, the pseudo-Deco light fixtures, shiny wall surfaces and streamlining accents. (Chap. 12, Fig.2) They wanted new designs while envisioning some reuse of metallic accents and fittings, including the elevator doors. Loading docks on Forty-first street and other superfluous spaces tied to the erstwhile publishing business were to be converted to a lounge, a fitness center, and other features found in buildings of comparable stature, important for attracting tenants west of Eighth Avenue near the bus terminal. The lobby had retained many original elements and preservationists pointed out that the interior design, colors, and materials flowed visually from the exterior.
("Nearly complete,” The Architect’s Newspaper, March 11, 2021 with representation of various viewpoints; https://www.archpaper.com/2021/03/the-demolition-of-the-lobby-at-manhattans-mcgraw-hill-building-is-nearly-complete/ accessed 1 6 2021 see also documentation of the original lobby by Thomas Collins and Theodore Grunewald https://www.dropbox.com/s/du3rq0jd29p031p/McGraw-Hill%20Lobby%20RFE%20Final%2002-24-2021.pdf?dl=0 accessed 1 6 2022 as revised 2 24 2021; Wikipedia, s.v. McGraw-Hill Building, accessed 1 6 2022; interview with Dan Shannon 1 6 2022. Port Authority: NYT 2 2 2024, p. A19. Christopher Bonanos, “Change Is Coming to the McGraw-Hill Building’s Art Deco Lobby. Or Is It?” Curbed 2 12 2021 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&view=btop&ver=o8xu6zqoww70&search=inbox&th=%23thread-f%3A1691603925603754257&cvid=1y accessed 2 13 2021; https://rew-online.com/big-unveil-at-new-look-330-west-42nd-street/ 9 2 2021 accessed 9 3 2021; https://therealdeal.com/2018/06/27/the-mcgraw-hill-buildings-top-half-to-receive-resi-conversion/ accessed 6 28 2018; Gough, pp. 11-16. For the Socony-Mobil loan problem:bisnow.com/new-york/news/capital-markets/525m-mobil-building-loan-sent-to-special-servicing-following-default-125859?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm accessed 12 12 2022. Steve Cuozzo in https://nypost.com/2021/09/19/old-mcgraw-building-free-to-start-new-chapter 1 21 2022 accessed 12 12 2022; C. Gray, “Streetscapes,” NYT 2 26 2021, p. RE3)
But by early 2023, to the surprise of many landmark lovers, Deco Towers and Resolution Real Estate submitted a new proposal. Given the downturn in office rentals, the owners planned apartments on floors 12-24, and two amenity levels. They abandoned the earlier three-level lobby design that was to accommodate many office workers. The –now fewer-- office workers heading to the low, wide floors 2-11 would enter at a new door at the west end, while the lobby in its existing dimensions would be used by residential tenants. The owners proposed an unnecessary canopy over the entrance door which the Landmarks Commissioners rejected while allowing the applicants to propose a new design. MdeAS continued as the office designers, with SLCE Architects in charge of the apartment plans.
(Fig.7. Rendering of proposed residential entrance, MdeAS architects, 2023. Photo: Courtesy, the architects.)
(https://w42st.com/post/historic-mcgraw-hill-art-deco-tower-residential/ accessed 2 16 2023; https://www.archpaper.com/2023/02/a-plan-for-manhattans-mcgraw-hill-building-to-go-partially-residential-is-prompting-calls-for-its-original-raymond-hood-lobby-design-to-be-brought-back/?trk_msg=GDPK4ER0FNJKH79SRD5IUUQUVK&trk_contact=TEPFHR44CIVCNPL8VQT1VM1DKS&trk_sid=A8RAM960J95DUU67A099RTDUP8&trk_link=Q18JM1D6B5F4T0A13UL3BDRAB0&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=A+plan+for%26nbsp%3bMcGraw-Hill%26nbsp%3bbuilding+to+go+partially+residential+prompts+calls+for+its+original+lobby+design+to+be+brought+back&utm_campaign=Late+Edition+East%3a+A+plan+for+McGraw-Hill+building+to+go+partially+residential+prompts+calls+for+its+original+lobby+design+to+be+be+brought+back accessed 2 17 2023) https://newyorkyimby.com/2023/03/partial-commercial-to-residential-conversion-revealed-for-mcgraw-hill-building-in-midtown-manhattan.html accessed 3 25 2023
As for newer building, ceremonies attended the opening of One Vanderbilt, just west of Grand Central.
(Fig.8. One Vanderbilt, Kohn Pedersen Fox, 2024. View from west. Photo: Author, August 2025)
(Fig.9. One Vanderbilt View from east. Photo: Author, 9 1 2025)
One Vanderbilt overwhelms the Forty-third Street approach to Grand Central, dwarfs the Chrysler Building, and looms over the sidewalks with its angular façade of glass and patterned terra cotta.
(Fig. 10. One Vanderbilt. Kohn Pedersen Fox, 2020. Southwest corner. Photo: Author, 8 4 2025)
Terminal elements were designed according to the Fibonacci sequence in which a number is the sum of the two preceding ones; the lowest number and thinnest portion is at the top. The building is extremely high and wide but stabilized by dampers. When an elevator car under repair fell three stories to a catching spring, the building experienced a tremor but did not fail.
(For technological and structural aspects of supertall buildings, see Stefan Al, Supertall: How the World’s Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives, New York, W. W. Norton, 2022, part I. For the tremor on March 21, 2023, see https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/an-elevator-malfunction-led-to-tremors-at-trophy-office-one-vanderbilt-118196?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_65935&utm_content=outbound_newsletter2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_65935&utm_content=outbound_newsletter2&utm_medium=email accessed 3 22 2023. See also the website of the Skyscraper Museum)
The public, not generally interested in mathematical sequences, and by then indifferent to yet another supertall, was enticed by energetic publicity to walk through a dark mirrored corridor to take a glass-walled high-speed elevator up to spectacular views from the four-level Summit destination space. Visitors may stand on glass floors 1,063 feet above the sidewalk. Sunset visits cost more although the price is lower without the ride in the glass elevator, and New York residents and military personnel received concessions when the site opened. By that time, several commercial buildings including One Times Square, a tower in Hudson Yards, and the “Top of the Rock” space at 30 Rockefeller Plaza had also developed “experiences” of various kinds to entice tourists to see the views from their heights, perhaps learn a little history or immerse themselves in the lives of television story characters, and be dazzled in various ways by light shows, projected images, and music.
The skyline views are supplemented indoors by an “experience space” called Air designed by Kenzo Digital, a pseudonym related to this entrepreneur’s work in computer-assisted art. He included multiple reflecting mirrors, colored lights, Mylar balloons, sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, shiny bubbles, and varied sounds designed by Joseph Fraioli. There are also a separate lounge and expensive café designed by Snøhetta, which had overall responsibility for the interior. At ground level, the entrepreneurial chef, Daniel Boulud, is a celebrity of cuisine who also has a shop and café. Near it, high expanses of glass enclose three tall metallic abstract sculptures by Tony Cragg, called “Untitled.”
(Fig. 11 Tony Cragg “Untitled” at One Vanderbilt. Photo: Author 4 2025)
They are visible from the 20 x 60-foot landscaped area without seats, designed by PWP Landscape Architects, that separates the new skyscraper from Grand Central. The area allows the building’s size to match the developer’s wishes and the city’s rules.
(Fig, 12. Plaza created by closing part of Vanderbilt Avenue. Photo: Author 2025.)
The new subway entrance, the ground floor lobby, art, and the small garden were not needed by anyone except the developers who received bonuses that made larger sizes possible. Observers criticize the hard-to-explain façade projections and angles, and the ornamental surface of the solid exterior elements, although those are matters of taste. Tenants have easy access from public transportation to their spacious offices, which are 14.6 to 20 feet high, with column-free floorplates. Employees enjoy an auditorium, meeting rooms and lounges. Early ideas of having design elements “selective[ly] recall” those of Grand Central (Wikipedia: One Vanderbilt) represented wishful thinking, as there are no apparent connections.
Collaborators in the project included subcontractors to AECOM Tishman: Banker Steel, and E-J Electric Installation. Structural and other engineers were Severud Associates, MEP Engineers Jaros, Baum & Bolles, and Hines as the project manager. There were, as always, many other collaborators including Gensler for the interiors and Permasteelisa Group for the façade.
(NYT 8 10 2016, p. Z20 https://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/one-vanderbilt-new-york/ accessed 1 16 2022; On finishing amenities first: Councilman Dan Garodnick, newsletter)
The construction is said to have been finished a year ahead of schedule and under budget.
(https://www.archpaper.com/2020/09/kpf-designed-supertall-one-vanderbilt-officially-opens-in-midtown-manhattan/ accessed 1 16 2022; NYT 9 15 2020, p. A1; 2 16 2023, p. A13 for limits to the environmentally beneficial features. See also for this nytdirect_at_nytimes.com_qbd778m58j_e6537149@privaterelay.appleid.com for Wed. 2 22 2023, 9:56 PM)
The developers of One Vanderbilt had to contribute to the future restructuring of the Terminal’s corridors and platform arrangement, the cost given as $220 million. They would be able to pay the sum because its tenants signed thirteen leases costing over $100 per square foot, cheering industry circles; only 50 Hudson Yards and the Seagram Building had new tenants paying higher starting rents. A statement given by SL Green to the Securities and Exchange Commission reported that the building was 96.8% occupied at the end of 2022. By the summer of 2024, the building was entirely rented, and reports circulated about rents at $265 per square foot. Manhattan office buildings began serious recovery by the autumn of 2024.
(Bisnow, as above. The Hines real estate company and the National Pension Service of Korea are minor owners. https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/deal-sheet/this-weeks-ny-deal-sheet-125733?utm_source=outbound_pub_90&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_80030&utm_content=outbound_link_7&utm_medium=email accessed 9 7 2024. https://www.globest.com/2024/10/14/manhattan-office-availability-rates-hit-3-year- low/?kw=Manhattan%20Office%20Availability%20Rates%20Hit%203-Year%20Low&utm_position=3&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=spotlightonalert&utm_content=20241014&utm_term=rem&user_id=5d52d3a109730fa7078ccfed3d4bdeb3bb7d8c24e041067f66cebb844a1df30d accessed 10 15 2024)
The building’s investors considered environmentally friendly design and development to be worth their attention. The LEED council agreed, awarding it Platinum and Gold certification which is calculated before occupancy. While One Vanderbilt generates much of its own electricity, it uses turbines employing natural gas; the City has outlawed fossil fuels in future construction. The concrete has a forty percent cement replacement content, and the steel reinforcing bars use ninety percent recycled material. The building uses ultra-violet light sanitation and air filtration that modifies organic compounds. A rainwater management system reduces sewage outflow and can be used in the cooling towers that send water back down to cool machinery on lower floors. High-performance glass to control excessive heat and cold and other beneficial measures are points for justifiable boasting. Large windows reduce the need for electric lighting. The building’s own power plant contains turbines that use natural gas and eliminate electricity loss between distant generators and the destination, but its relative cleanliness compared to coal and oil nevertheless produces methane and carbon dioxide This environmental interest antedated the pandemic but increased in visibility when health consciousness became universal, even temporarily. It gained notice in the real estate field in connection with a $2.3 billion refinancing, to which Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were parties.
At the end of 2021, SL Green could have been especially pleased at its investment in One Vanderbilt, because pandemic-caused problems had afflicted some of its other properties.
Among those that it sold were condominium interests in 110 East, built as the Bowery Savings Bank.
(Wikipedia, s.v. One Vanderbilt, accessed 1 23.2022 gives a history and description of the building and further references. See also NYT 2 14 2023, updated 2 16 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/climate/green-skyscraper-one-vanderbilt.html accessed 7 2 2023. For collaborating engineers and specialists: Catherine Chattergoon, “On Top of the World, Case Study,” Architects’ Newspaper, AN Focus, July-August 2022, p. 42. For the Summit: Sarah Cascone, “In Pictures” artnet news, 11. 12 2021 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/kenzo-digital-air-observation-deck-2033546 accessed 11 20 2021; Paula Bernstein, Meet the Creator,” FastCompany https://www.fastcompany.com/1681751/meet-the-creator-kenzo-digital-and-directing-beyond-the-screen, accessed 11 20 2021; https://www.epicerieboulud.com/one-vanderbilt-1 accessed 1 13 2022; Alyson Krueger https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/nyregion/summit-one-vanderbilt-kenzo.html accessed 10 21 21; for critic Justin Davidson’s comments: ”The Observation-Deck Experience at One Vanderbilt Is Ridiculous,” https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGlkXtmpZlzHGTBlTRbwWKqjRhP accessed 10 21 2021. For the rents: https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/new-york-sees-record-top-dollar-office-deals- 111500?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54635&utm_content=outbound_link_1&utm_medium=email accessed 1 14 2022. Dan Rabb, “The Rich Get Richer,” Jan. 13, 2022: www.bisnow.com › new-york-news accessed 1 14 2022. On the refinancing: https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/office/green-building-could-help-developers-score-more-financing-110650?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_52508&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_52508&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 10 25 2021. https://www.globest.com/2022/02/07/they-could-only-resist-n8ycs-premium-office-space-for-so-long/?kw-They%20Could%20Onlly%20Resist%20NYC%27s%20Premium%20Office%20Space%20For%20So%20Long&et=editorial&bu=REM&en-20220207&src=EMC-Email&pt=New York accessed 2 7 2022. For environmental elements: see Jim Parsons in Engineering News-Record, Nov. 15, 2021. For problems with some of SL Green’s other properties: https://wwwlbisnow.com/new-york/news/office/ak-green-q4-earnings-one-vanderbilt-111652?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utmm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_54979&utm_content+outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 1 27 2020. “SL Green Records Loss, Cash Flow Dip Despite Improved Leasing, Bisnow New York Newsletter 1 27 2022. On supertalls without full certification of completion: NYT 10 3 2021, pp. R1, R10).
Grand Central Terminal itself, above the improved shuttle platforms, became a site for public vaccination during the pandemic. So did the Times Square subway station. Incentives of various kinds enticed people to be vaccinated, including a lottery in which the newly inoculated winner could enjoy free college tuition at the state’s and city’s public universities. In 2023, after the pandemic abated, the Terminal’s north end was linked to the Long Island Railroad, easing the commute for many riders but creating a long connection to other rail lines for passengers. An ominous note sounded in the spring, when reports circulated widely that the train shed that runs north from Forty-fifth Street was rapidly deteriorating but it does not affect Forty-second Street directly.
(Caroline Spivack, “A 110-year-old structure holding up Midtown is in dire need of repairs,” Crain’s New York Business, May 1, 2023, pp. 1, 22.)
Fortunately for developers RXR and TF Cornerstone who had bought the Hyatt hotel at Grand Central, originally the Commodore, the hotel was not a landmark. Plans to replace it had been developed since 2016 or earlier. The plans were well publicized in 2021 and in revised form in 2023, having been developed since 2016 or earlier. A combined office building and hotel is supposed to rise within a decade just east of Grand Central. The building, called 175 Park despite its marginal relation to Park Avenue, uses the name given to the proposed skyscrapers intended in past decades to rise above the Terminal. The building will visually overwhelm the Terminal on the east side, as One Vanderbilt does on its west side. The developers expected that under the Trump administration, they might secure Federal loans of up to $4.84 billion.
Marketing and public relations experts tried to persuade the public that unnecessary amenities excused the immensity of the new buildings which in times of full office occupancy would have strained pedestrian space and may in the future. Decades earlier, the City had promoted development on the west side because the east side was thought to be too densely occupied, at least by comparison. But the east side zoning revisions of 2016 were designed to replace smaller, older, and by then partly obsolete high-rises with larger ones that could attract current business owners and higher rents, perhaps producing higher taxes unless the developers received abatements. To soften the impact of the proposed new behemoth, the developers of 175 Park offered to widen the sidewalk on Forty-second Street--but by a mere five feet.
The architects, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, led this time by T. J. Gottesdiener, designed outdoor terraces above street level as the public space required by the zoning rules. Like some other privately-owned public spaces outdoors, these were likely to be pleasant for only half the year. They might be occupied by unhoused individuals rather than only the healthy and wholesome folks shown in the renderings unless the building owners enticed enough desirable users to the space. James Corner Field Associates, prominent landscape designers, presented preliminary proposals for landscaping the terraces with spines of trees and seats. The Chrysler Building will look even more diminished than it does already because of One Vanderbilt’s larger size and minimal setbacks.
The design of 175 Park as of 2021 predicts a tower over 1400 feet high, taller than One Vanderbilt’s. It is to rise above its public amenity terraces in five sections—one for a hotel, the rest reserved for offices. The developers expect office work to resume and with it, a demand for new premises, although real estate circles are still unsure of the percentage of white-collar workers who will return to offices five days a week after working remotely during the pandemic, That percentage did increase when some companies issued mandates to their employees, especially in 2024. How many others can do that successfully remains to be seen.
(https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/companies-want-to-downsize-their-office-spaces-post-pandemic-110234?utm_source=outbound_pub_5&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_51582&utm_content=outbound_link_3&utm_medium=email Sept 17 2021, accessed 9 17 2021; https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/office-amenities-not-luring-workers-back-110989?utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_53203&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=outbound_pub_60&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_53203&utm_content=outbound_newsletter1&utm_medium=email accessed 10 20 2021)
The steel columns that frame the building will knit together at the top, forming a late-Gothic-by-accident design that looks logical and tasteful. The base, from the height of Grand Central’s cornice down to street level, is logical, too, because there are only two places where the steel can be anchored into bedrock and not disturb the under-street features of Grand Central. The architects propose to have the columns curve toward those two places, an innovative solution, although renderings of the design evoke images of ladies’ bloomers or, as someone else said, harem pants.
(Fred A. Bernstein,” Controversial Design Unveiled,’ Architectural Record, vol. 209 #2. Feb 8 2021, https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/14991-controversial-design-unveiled-for-a-new-supertall-by-som-in-new-york accessed 1 23 2022. For a revised rendering, see https://newyorkyimby.com/2023/01/new-rendering-released-for-project-commodore-supertall-at-175-park-avenue-in-midtown-east-manhattan.html retrieved 9 2 2025)
The principal entrance to the building will open between the curves at the terrace level above a street-level entrance flanked by retail premises. Bold diagonal staircases are to run nearly parallel to the street, cutting through the bloomers to bring people up from the ground floor entrance area to the terrace, perhaps also to see works of art that are planned for these platforms; an elevator will serve those who cannot climb steps. The entire base element including the bloomers, stairs, and terraces, will rise to the height of Grand Central’s cornice. No relationship will be evident despite the promoters’ claims of having designed a contextual building. The bloomers and the diverging staircases are likely to overwhelm every other visual element of the blocks nearby, but the developer asserted that the building’s flat upper stories would provide a neutral backdrop for the Chrysler Building’s spire. There will, though, be even fewer spots from which the spire will be visible. Grand Central will become the partial filling of a sandwich between One Vanderbilt and 175 Park. Despite these flaws, the required public agencies approved the project. Even the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved it by an 8 to 2 vote in December 2021 but there was a vigorous minority challenge from Commissioner Michael Goldblum who called the design “scaleless,” among other adjectives.
Architect Peter Samton, whose firm had redesigned the Commodore to make it a Hyatt, understood the problems that constructing a new building there will face. They include adding the supporting structure without disturbing train and subway traffic; simultaneously providing construction cranes and equipment on a constricted site---perhaps to be overcome by extraordinary prefabrication; and accommodating train passengers at a building site. He also pointed out the likelihood of having to close the northbound arm of the road around Grand Central in order to build a cantilever proposed over the drive. (Architectural Record online, comments 2 8 2021, accessed 6 2 2023).
At street level, subway or train passengers will see an enlarged entrance on the left side with a higher, broader corridor to the trains. This better-lit pathway received unanimous approval. Turnstiles are to be located above their present positions to be more obvious and convenient. Connections to all train lines will be smoother. The new plans have been well coordinated with those of the Terminal, the subway system, and the Long Island Railroad platforms north of Forty-third Street. The building owners must pay for improvements to the transportation system. Beyer Blinder Belle architects, who had restored and substantially improved the Terminal in the 1990s, collaborated with the planners of One Vanderbilt.
While 175 Park may be realized in the future, the Grand Hyatt reopened. A City Council bill required hotels that had closed during the pandemic to provide severance pay for staff, up to thirty weeks-- $15,000 per person. If a hotel recalled a quarter of its staff and opened by November 1, 2021, this rule would be waived, so the hotel reopened. Its new name, Hyatt Grand Central New York, suggested a downgrade in corporate status from a Grand Hyatt. But it was expected to close and then to be replaced by 175 Park. In the meantime, few tourists were likely to notice subtleties in the name or the amenities if the price was right.
(Ben Schlappig, “Grand Hyatt New York Reopening & Rebranding,” One Mile At A Time, October 11, 2021 as updated Dec. 22, 2021: https://onemileatatime.com/news/grand-hyatt-new-york-reopening-rebranding/ accessed 1 7 2022. For shortages of workers in restaurants and hotels, see the efficient summary, “Blue-collar burnout,” The Economist, Jan. 8, 2022, pp. 57-58. The website with the $98 same-day charge was Trip Advisor.com, accessed at 4:10 PM on 1 29 2023. The hotel’s own website charged $139 a few minutes later. Prices during the following week rose only to $148 per night on Trip Advisor but rose higher in 2024. https://www.globest.com/2025/01/17/rxr-and-tf-cornerstone-propose-to-build-tallest-ever-us-skyscraper-that-could-cost-65b/?kw=RXR%20and%20TF%20Cornerstone%20Propose%20to%20Build%20Tallest-Ever%20U.S.%20Skyscraper%20That%20Could%20Cost%206.5B&et=editorial&bu=REM&cn=20250117&src=EMC-Email&pt=NewYork&oly_enc_id=4013J6531689A4Y&user_id=5d52d3a109730fa7078ccfed3d4bdeb3bb7d8c24e041067f66cebb844a1df30d&slreturn=20250119-24826)
Transportation allied with building proposals engaged planners on the west side, too. The Port Authority’ s staff and allied professionals had worked for about a decade on proposals to rebuild the bus terminal. In February 2024, the Port Authority displayed images of Lord Norman Foster firm’s designs for it---a grandiose project.
(Figs. 13 and 14, Renderings of proposed Port Authority Bus Terminal, Foster + Partners, 2024. Photos: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.)
His glamorous renderings reached the public at the end of 2024, featuring a skylit interior surrounded by balconies, a change from the gloomy existing interior. The plans envisioned closing part of Forty-first Street, building two new skyscrapers at Fortieth and Forty-second Streets, and constructing new decks over Dyer Avenue, a new bus staging and storage building, and ramps to and from the Lincoln Tunnel. There would be a central main entrance flanked by retail premises along the streets.
The Port Authority had applied for a billion-dollar Federal loan and may have published the proposal during the Biden administration’s final month to forestall the new Trump administration’s possible antipathy to it; Donald Trump prefers classical architecture. The City planned to contribute forty years of tax revenue to help fund the work, relying on three potential commercial developments within a small radius of the terminal. But this struck some observers as unpredictable, since in the previous post-pandemic years many commercial buildings had seen quick drops in tenancy with work-from-home reducing the need for office space. Businesses sublet space even in new buildings, as at Hudson Yards, because the principal tenants no longer needed what they had contracted to rent.
(https://gothamist.com/news/construction-on-part-of-new-midtown-bus-terminal-to-begin-next-year-port-authority-says?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=nypr-email&utm_campaign=Gothamist+Daily+Newsletter&utm_term=https://gothamist.com/news/construction-on-part-of-new-midtown-bus-terminal-to-begin-next-year-port-authority-says&utm_id=402879&sfmc_id=53055845&utm_content=2024125&nypr_member=True accessed 12/6/2024; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-05/nyc-s-rundown-bus-terminal-gets-approval-for-10-billion-revamp?cmpid=BBD120524_CITYLAB&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=241205&utm_campaign=citylabdaily accessed 12/5/2024
As usual, when there are empty spaces, landlords and tenants with unclear leases and unusual businesses move right in. At 512 West, one or more nightclubs including venues catering to gay partygoers flourished briefly until the police closed them in 2024. In one club called Baby’s, a place definitely not for infants, a shooting occurred in a gambling den but the victim’s life was saved. The expensive apartment houses nearby had not entirely eliminated alternative uses of Forty-second Street’s buildings, and perhaps never will. The former OutNYC Hotel at 510 West gave way to small and sometimes short-lived replacement accommodations. The entrepreneur Ian Reisner, who had operated the Out from 2012 to 2016, signed a new lease for the property in March of 2024, and installed a hotel above a new night club. The latter, operated with various illegalities, was shut down by court order in January 2025. An entrance canopy promised the arrival of a Westin branch there in 2025.
(shttps://gothamist.com/news/parties-raged-at-a-midtown-nightclub-until-a-shooting-led-nyc-to-shut-it-down, accessed 3 25 2025; google search, same date, for 513 West 42nd Street NYC https://w42st.com/post/ian-reisner-outnyc-hotel-city-boutique-west-42nd-street/. https://w42st.com/post/chaos-cash-and-gunfire-inside-the-short-wild-life-of-babys-nightclub-at-the-hudson-yards-hotel/ For a dramatic photograph, see reservationdesk.com/hotel/692a834/hudson-yards-hotel-new-york-new-york/?cid=sem::TPRD::BA::Reservation%20Desk%20>%20US%20>%20Northeast%20>%20New%20York%20>%20New%20York%20City%20Area::US%20>%20New%20York%20>%20New%20York%20>%20Hudson%20Yards%20Hotel%20>%20did-692a834%20>%20110274612::hudson%20yards%20hotel%2042nd%20street::p&creative=82463759685092&device=c&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=hudson%20yards%20hotel%2042nd%20street&utm_campaign=Reservation%20Desk%20>%20US%20>%20Northeast%20>%20New%20York%20>%20New%20York%20City%20Area&iv_=__iv_m_p_c_82463759685092_k_82464748944408_w_kwd-82464748944408:loc-4116_g_1319416414703366_n_o_e__h_59981_ii_114010_p_2_b_bp_d_c_vi__&msclkid=df166a854b051ef548ab02178d9f06f8# accessed 8 5 2025)
2024 ended, as years had for over a century, with the dropping of a crystal-clad ball from the Times tower. It wasn’t just the end of the year; it was the end of this version of the ball, inaugurated in 2008. Like the building itself, it needed care and updating.
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CODA
In January 2024, requirements went into effect that buildings larger than 25,000 square feet must track and report greenhouse gas emissions. Fines can be assessed for failure to comply, but some penalties can be reduced for good-faith attempts. Some owners may calculate that the fines are cheaper than full compliance, but the full effects of the rules will not be known until the penalties increase in 2030. Or perhaps they won’t, since a professional real estate operator won a second term in the White House.
(https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/sustainability-climate/nyc-landlords-have-their-ducks-in-a-row-for-emissions-compliance)
By 2021 and even earlier, New Yorkers had given up hope of reducing cast shadows in midtown. The public benefits exchanged for blocked air and light were hard to quantify. One Vanderbilt’s superfluous small landscaped area at the south end of Vanderbilt Avenue looks more like a carpet laid before the skyscraper’s lobby than an important benefit for the public. (Fig. 12) And there are no seats, just the uncomfortable rim of a planter bed.
Perhaps light, air, and comfortable public space are not the point on Forty-second Street. It is a street densely packed with money-making buildings, relieved by the United Nations library, the Ford Foundation, Grand Central Terminal, the Public Library, non-profit theaters, and the Chinese Consulate. The open space is at Bryant Park, the Cubes and Times Square, next to a few apartment buildings at the west end, at the ferry terminal and-- invisible from street level--the parks at Tudor City. Bryant Park itself, however improved, had in part been leased to a restaurant which was about to have new management by 2025 after a generation of feeding sufficiently affluent people and some of the park’s pigeons.
(Fig. 15. Bryant Park, café and restaurant. Photo: Author 8 16 2025)
Perhaps we shouldn’t expect or even long for more public amenity on this street. It was meant for commerce as soon as the city grew rapidly northward. The Crystal Palace was a commercial enterprise. So were theaters, despite their potential for high culture. So was the train depot and the brilliant, glorious Terminal, created in part because of competition with the Pennsylvania Railroad’s building. The subways were meant to foster commerce and real estate development, not just to transport passengers. We may enjoy views from the tops of tall new buildings, but the viewing levels are money-makers and generators of potentially profitable prestige. Are lovers of good architecture meant to remember the realities of building? In the words of Kerry Downes, British author of work about the British architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, “Architecture is only one-third art, after gravity, convenience, coarse materials, a workforce, money…” The best architects remember that one-third. Other buildings may exemplify the outburst of architect Gordon Bunshaft who designed the Grace Building: “There’s no such thing as architecture in New York City. It’s only the goddam zoning.” Nevertheless, he and others have sometimes married the two.
(Kerry Downes, “Nicholas Hawksmoor in Perspective,” in Downes, Colin Amery, Gavin Stamp, St. George’s Bloomsbury, London, World Monuments Fund/Scala, 2008, p. 16. Bunshaft: comment to author, ca. 1984.)
Is this acceptable urbanism? In 1955, Lewis Mumford wrote-- in connection with plans for a skyscraper over Grand Central-- that “It is incredible that the management of the railroads concerned should think of adding to their considerable problems by intensifying the congestion around their most important stations; instead, they should be exerting pressure upon the municipality to halt the competition among builders to make the whole midtown area untenantable.” (From the Ground Up, New York, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1956, pp. 206-207) He pointed to the cost of delays in transportation that he blamed for part of the postwar movement to the suburbs and wrote that plans to improve the situation seemed “to be the product of sleepwalkers who have never observed the city by day.” This was before the massive Socony-Mobil Building went up, or the tall buildings at Third Avenue and those of the Times Square improvement project. And it was long before the Covid-19 pandemic that left building owners puzzling over the future: Would people return to offices, how many would, and when? Would competing new buildings supersede older ones, and at what cost to whom? And what about the city’s revenue stream? Pre-pandemic figures customarily estimated the real estate contribution to it at 39%. What can replace it, or part of it?
This is the city we have, not the one Mumford hoped to have. If we remember that New York City has emphasized commerce from the day of its first European settlement, we can see continuity from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first. Forty-second Street shows what really matters to midtown Manhattan: Money. Fortunately, culture, handsome architecture, open spaces, and other aspects of beauty have been present as well. They may be essential for preserving the money.