The Rise of the Midtown Manhattan Skyline

Over a century's worth of Midtown Manhattan high-rise construction.
Read the story: https://www.commercialcafe.com/blog/midtown-manhattan-skyline-evolution

Check out the building trivia below:

1. One Times Square/Times Tower
Year built: 1908
111 years of tradition and counting - the first New Year’s Eve Time Ball to be lowered down the flagpole atop the Times Tower marked the passage from the year 1907 to 1908.

2. Helmsley Building
Year built: 1928
Built on shock absorbers to dampen the rumbling of trains running below it, the 565-foot historic building does not touch the ground. You can fit a pen between the building and its foundation.

3. Mercantile Building
Year built: 1929
In 2007, the Mercantile Building was the last NYC property to be switched from direct to alternating current, marking the end of Con Ed’s 125 years of direct current electricity service.

4. 30 Rockefeller Plaza
Year built: 1932
Anchor of Rockefeller Center, the only large private real estate project to be constructed between the start of the Great Depression and the end of WWII.

5. Socony-Mobil Building
Year built: 1955
The city's first stainless-steel skyscraper, sheathed in 7,000 panels weighing about 750,000 pounds, and covering a surface area of more than 10 acres.

6. Seagram Building
Year Built: 1958
The entire building is covered in bronze and is oiled by hand once a year, with a lemon-based oil, to prevent discoloration and maintain its distinctive nuance.

7. The Chase Building
Year built: 1961
One of NYC’s peaks of modernist architecture, it is slated to become the largest building ever to be deliberately destroyed, when it is razed to make room for a tower 1 million square feet larger and 500 feet taller.

8. General Motors Building
Year built: 1968
The massive 2 million-square-foot tower consistently ranks as the top taxpaying office property in the entire U.S., having generated over $220 million in tax revenue over the past three years.

9. News Corp Building (Celanese)
Year built: 1973
The 45-story skyscraper was the 21st and last building in the Rockefeller Center complex, on which construction started nearly four decades prior, in the depths of the Depression.

10. 767 3rd Avenue
Year built: 1980
The building’s whimsical public plaza includes the world’s biggest chess board, on which a move is made every Wednesday at noon.

11. Metropolitan Tower
Year built: 1985
The Metropolitan and Carnegie Hall towers are less than 33 feet apart, as the owner of the Russian Tea Room, in NYC “holdout” tradition, refused to sell and make room for one big development.

12. Worldwide Plaza
Year built: 1989
The first major office development west of 8th Ave. since 1931, it was so important to rescuing West Midtown, that it was the subject of a book and a 5-part PBS special upon completion.

13. Condé Nast Building
Year built: 1999
After 2001, the tower at 4 Times Square was one of NYC’s few remaining options for radio transmitter sites. Its new antenna made it the 4th-tallest structure in Midtown.

14. New York Times Building
Year built: 2003
Empire State Development Corp. controversially assembled the site by eminent domain, condemning 10 Times Square buildings, home to long-standing local small businesses.

15. 432 Park Avenue
Year built: 2016
Sporting the greatest height-to-width ratio of any skyscraper in the world, the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere incorporates 2 tuned mass dampers.

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