Results tagged “empirestatebuildings”

This morning, Governor Eliot Spitzer is announcing the sale of the West Side Railyards. The NY Times reports that the state and MTA will "formally begin soliciting bids for the development rights." Boy, does this bring us back to 2005. Of course, developers will need a boatload of patience and a boatload of money - the land was appraised last September to be worth $1.5 billion and it's estimated to cost $1 billion to simply build a platform over the railyards.

The dissension over Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development is at a furious boil. Politicians, neighbors and builders are locked in a death struggle, complete with heckling, catcalls and overheated titanium, over the fate of a possible "nine million square feet" of new buildings - "the equivalent of four Empire State Buildings" - could do to the community. For many people, the idea that there would be this huge influx of jobs and economic opportunities (not to mention more housing) make it a no-brainer. On the other hand, some residents fear that Brooklyn doesn't have the infrastructure to support such a massive undertaking and their communities will be harmed. What do think of the plans so far? What do you think of the politicians', developers', and community groups' arguments?

The Skyscraper Museum asked one hundred architects, brokers, builders, critics, developers, engineers, historians, lawyers, officials, owners, planners and scholars what their ten favorite NYC skyscrapers were from a list of buildings (which did not include the World Trade Center). The NY Times looks at the results, which are a great shorthand of the must-sees in the city. The top ten are Chrysler Building (with the most votes), Seagram, Flatiron, Woolworth, Empire State, Lever House, RCA, McGraw-Hill, U.N. Secretariat, and CBS. Reporter David Dunlap notes the Chrysler Building's "ebullient eccentricity" as being the best at "expressing New York's cloud-piercing ambitions" and calls the runner-up, the Seagram Building, the Chrysler's "anthithesis" as the Seagram is "cool, tranquil, rectangular and restrained."

To answer yesterday's question the rain we had on Wednesday would have filled the Empire State Building approximately 71 times over. To calculate that, Gothamist converted the land area for the city (321 square miles) to square feet (a little under nine billion) and then multiplied that by our estimated average rainfall (3.52 inches or 0.293 feet). That gives us a little over 2.6 billion cubic feet of rain water. Divide by the volume of the ESB (37 million cubic feet) and you get 71 Empire State Buildings worth of rain.

Are you sick of talking about Wednesday's rain? If so you're not going to like Gothamist because we have a little back-to-school math quiz for you. Don't worry, it is only one question!

Hung side by side, with no space between them, the 30-inch-wide competition panels would stretch nearly two and a half miles, roughly the distance from the trade center site to Union Square. Were the 40-inch-high panels set top to bottom (admittedly, not a conventional exhibition arrangement), they would rise to the height of nearly 14 Empire State Buildings.

Continue reading "WTC Memorial Entries To Be Displayed - All 5,201 of 'em"