Central Park Tower
Central Park Tower is a residential supertall skyscraper at 217 West 57th Street, along Billionaires' Row, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the building rises with 98 above-ground stories and three basement stories, although the top story is numbered 136. Central Park Tower is the second-tallest building in New York City, the United States, and the Western Hemisphere; the 15th tallest building in the world; the tallest primarily residential building in the world; and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height.
Central Park Tower was developed by Extell Development Company and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. The basement and first five above-ground stories contain a large Nordstrom store, which opened in 2019. The eastern portion of the tower contains a cantilever above the Art Students League of New York's building at 215 West 57th Street, intended to maximize views of nearby Central Park. The residential portion of the tower contains 179 condominiums, spanning on average, with interiors designed by Rottet Studio. There are also amenities spaces on floors 14 through 16 as well as a private club on floor 100.
The site of Central Park Tower was assembled during the first decade of the 21st century; during the acquisition process, the tower was delayed after two buildings at 225 West 57th Street and 1780 Broadway were considered for New York City landmark status. Despite uncertainty about the final design and complications relating to financing, excavations at the site started in May 2014 and above-ground construction started in early 2015. There were several incidents and controversies during the building's construction, including a controversy over the tower's cantilever and the death of a security guard. The building was topped out during September 2019, and completed in 2020. In total, Central Park Tower cost $3 billion to construct.
Site
Central Park Tower is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. It is on the east side of Broadway between 57th Street to the south and 58th Street to the north. It is one block south of Central Park and Columbus Circle. The northwestern corner of the building abuts 1790 Broadway, while the southwestern corner is adjacent to 1776 Broadway. Central Park Tower is also near 240 Central Park South and 220 Central Park South to the north; the American Fine Arts Society and the Osborne apartment building to the east; and 224 West 57th Street and 218 West 57th Street to the south.Central Park Tower is one of several major developments around 57th Street and Central Park that are collectively dubbed Billionaires' Row by the media. Other buildings along Billionaires' Row include 432 Park Avenue four blocks east, 111 West 57th Street and One57 one block east, and the adjacent 220 Central Park South.
Former buildings
In the 20th century, the area was part of Manhattan's "Automobile Row", a stretch of Broadway extending mainly between Times Square at 42nd Street and Sherman Square at 72nd Street. Before the first decade of the 20th century, the area was occupied mostly by horse-related industries and was described by The New York Times as "thoroughly lifeless". By 1907, the Times characterized this section of Broadway as having "almost a solid line of motor vehicle signs all the way from Times Square to Sherman Square". In the late 1900s and early 1910s, several large automobile showrooms, stores, and garages were built on Broadway, including the United States Rubber Company building at 5 Columbus Circle and the Demarest and Peerless Company showrooms at 224 West 57th Street.On the western side of the building's base is the 12-story facade of the former 1780 Broadway, which formerly contained the B. F. Goodrich Company showroom. There was also an 8-story building at 225 West 57th Street, which contained the Stoddard-Dayton showroom. Both structures were built in 1909 to designs by Howard Van Doren Shaw, and they shared a freight elevator. 1780 Broadway was one of the most visible buildings on Automobile Row because of the site's elevated topography, and it was leased to various automotive firms during the early 20th century. Goodrich came to own both 1780 Broadway and 225 West 57th Street; when the company sold the structures in 1928, they were collectively called the "Goodrich Building". A single-story annex was built for the Lincoln Art Theatre in 1962–1964, and the Goodrich Building became a supermarket in the 1990s before being acquired by Central Park Tower's developer, the Extell Development Company, in 2006. In addition, the Hard Rock Cafe and Broadway Dance Center occupied the structure at 221 West 57th Street before that building was purchased by Extell, also in 2006.
Architecture
Central Park Tower was developed jointly by Extell and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. It was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, with AAI Architects as the architect of record. WSP Global was the structural engineer for the project, while Lendlease was the main contractor.The building has 98 physical above-ground floors and three basement levels. The top story is numbered 136, and several floor numbers are skipped. The tallest habitable story is high, while the roof and architectural tip are above ground level. The use of development rights transferred from other structures nearby, as well as about of mechanical spaces, enabled Central Park Tower to reach a taller height than would have ordinarily been allowed. Central Park Tower is the tallest primarily residential building in the world; the much taller Burj Khalifa has 900 residential units but is mixed-use. Central Park Tower is also the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the 15th-tallest building in the world, and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height. The building's top floor and roof height are higher than that of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Due to its high slenderness ratio, the building has been characterized as part of a new breed of New York City "pencil towers".
Form and facade
The facade of Central Park Tower was designed by James Carpenter Design Associates and Permasteelisa Group. According to Gill and Smith, the glass cladding was intended to help the tower fit into the skyline. The entrance for Nordstrom is on 57th Street, as is the main residential entrance. A secondary residents' entrance is on 58th Street.To maximize views of Central Park, Extell built a cantilever extending from the eastern side of the tower.The cantilever starts roughly above the Art Students League building and covers roughly one-third of the total space above that building. Without the cantilever, Vornado Realty Trust's under-construction 220 Central Park South would have blocked the lowest of the tower. The Art Students League building itself could not be modified because it was a New York City designated landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cantilever was constructed in conjunction with an air rights sale in 2013, which shifted 220 Central Park South slightly west. This agreement, in turn, ended a years-long dispute over the site of 220 Central Park South. Since 2019, Central Park Tower has held the Guinness World Record for being the tallest cantilevered building.
Main structure
The base of the tower along 57th and 58th Streets is made of glass, arranged into fluted panels that are insulated and laminated. The panels are installed in a serpentine "wave" pattern. These glass panels have a total combined surface area of. The panels are set within aluminum frames and locked together with steel plates, fitting between the concrete floor slabs on each level.The facade for the upper stories is mostly a curtain wall made of aluminum and glass. Over of these materials were used in the facade. According to Permasteelisa, of glass curtain wall is used on the upper floors. The magazine Informed Infrastructure states that of glass is used on the facade, comprising over 12,000 panels. Each of the panels measures, on average, tall and across. The residential stories have casement windows, within the curtain wall, that can swing up to outward. In addition, some condominium units have motorized windows at least above the floor. For the eastern facade, which cantilevers over the Art Students League building, a zinc facade was installed to reduce reflections of sunlight onto nearby buildings. Zinc was chosen because it would eventually degrade into a matte finish.
The spandrels between each floor are clad with stainless steel. The curtain wall is subdivided vertically by stainless steel "fins" that are arranged similarly to pinstripes; they resemble mullions but do not project from the facade. The fins were originally designed as oblong ovals, but they were rotated after the contractors conducted simulations and determined that rotated ovals would be better suited for preventing snow accumulation. There are fewer fins on upper stories but, at several places on the facade, tall narrow bands wrap around the building, with the bands on upper stories being progressively larger.
For maintenance of the upper stories' facade, there are six "building maintenance units" on the roof. The facade underneath the cantilever on the building's eastern side, as well as the underside of the cantilever, is maintained by a cart that runs along a monorail under the cantilever. The top of the tower contains narrow, tall slats with vertical strips of lighting. According to Adrian Smith, one of the building's architects, the slats were meant to be "subtle, not garish".
1780 Broadway
The facade of the B. F. Goodrich Building at 1780 Broadway, dating to 1909, is a New York City designated landmark and is preserved at the base of the tower on Broadway. It was restored as part of the construction of Central Park Tower. The landmark facade, largely composed of brick and limestone, consists of one bay of windows on either side of a wide central bay. 1780 Broadway was initially 12 stories tall, but it corresponds to eight physical stories within the base of Central Park Tower.The lowest two floors of 1780 Broadway are clad with granite and topped by a granite cornice, which has a peak at its center. Two storefronts were added at ground level in the 20th century and, at some point before 1979, light-toned granite was added to the ground floor. In the late 2010s, marble doorways were added to the ground story. The central window opening of the second floor is flanked by granite columns, while the outer bays contain trimmed rectangular window frames with carved bands. On each of the third through 11th floors, the central bay contains four windows within a granite frame, with a brick surround and a single window on either side. There is a small cornice above the central bay on the third floor and a sill above the 11th floor of the landmark facade. The 12th floor is clad with brick and contains a decorative balcony in the central bay.