History New York 20th century

[erickchristian]

1976 Special

the empire state building
night illumination

fantasy in color

Hi!!! Welcome back to this travel through the history of the Skyscraper Capital of the World during the 20th Century. As a Christmas gift, and continuing our trip through the 1970s, I show a 1976 special dedicated to the Empire State Building's night illumination. 1976 was a great year for the most famous of skyscrapers because in these year, the last 30-stories of the building was illuminated with color floodlights that celebrated the Bicentennial, and begun a great color fantasies that enlighted the 102-story skyscraper during different special days until today.

The color illumination of the top of the Empire State Building was the end of 45 years of light evolution that testify the evolution of technologies of light illumination of famous buildings and testify the love that the many New Yorkers and all the world that fell for the most lovest of the skyscrapers.

Now I show the evolution of the Empire State Building's night illumination since 1931.


Light evolution

The first light illumination that had the Empire State Building was the reflectors that enlighted all the building when it was dedicated, on May 1, 1931. Photo: The Daily News.




Since its dedication on May 1931 until 1945 the mooring mast of the building were illuminated with reflector lights. The Empire State Building looks empty. View of the building from the Continental Building. July 1932. Photo: Samuel H. Gottscho.




From the new RCA Building, the empty Empire State Building appears in darknest, and the only part fully illuminated was the mooring mast. 1934. Photo: Samuel H. Gottscho.




As consecuence of the B-25 Mitchell borbardier air crash, in July 1945, until 1956, the Empire State Building's mooring mast was illuminated in its interior, and added light for the airplanes orientation. When the 200 feet television tower was added in 1951, more ligt signal for the airplanes were added to the building. View of the building with its new illumination from RCA Building in 1952.




A color view of the Empire State in 1953.




In the 1950s the building was fully occuppied and, in the night the building was now fully illuminated. View from RCA Building in July 1954.




In 1956, four large beacon lights were installed at the foot of the mooring mast called “Operation Light Up the Sky,” also known as “The Freedom Lights.” The lights can see until more of 80 miles on the distance. View of Midtown Manhattan looking north from Metropolitan Life Tower in December 1957. The Empire State wi8th its new illumination appears on the left.




The Empire State Building in 1961. The beacons were in the building until April 1964.





In April 1964, the beacoms were removed and the building's last 30 stories and the mooring mast were illuminated for first time with floodlights. The new illumination, created by billboard lighter Douglas Leigh that was commisioned by the Empire State Corporation in honor of the inauguration of 1964 World Fair and its white floodlights that remarked the Art Deco of the top of the building. The new floodlights illuminated the building until the installation of color plaques in 1976.

The Empire State's new night illumination from the RCA Building. June 1964.




The building at night from RCA Building in September 1968.




The same view in May 1973, with the new Twin Towers of World Trade Center at right.




Color lights.

During 1974 for many occasions the lights turn off because the energy crisis, but in 1976, the Empire State Building were more glamorous for a special occasions and for first time, the nigh illumination were in color.

In the night of July 4, 1976 for first time, the Empire State Building's top floors were enlighted with blue, white and red floodlights in occasion of the American Independence Bicentennial. For its special moment, the Empire State Building commisioned to Douglas Leigh the color design of the illumination of the top of the building and Leigh created a colored plastic picture that covered the floodlights that created the color effect on the Empire State Building's night illumination.

The first color illumination of Empire State Building: blue, white and red for the Bicentennial. 1976.




In 1977, the Empire State Corporation and Douglas Leigh created a permanet colo light scheme for the Empire State Building that were used in special event like American and International events.

Blue, White and Red: American festivites (4 of July, Veteran's Day, Election Day)




Sometimes, the order of the blue-white-red lights was changed. View of the Empire State Building with red-white-blue lights. 1978.




Green for St Patrick's celebration.




Blue: United Nations Anniversary (October 24).





Yellow, Orange and Red: Thanksgiving (November 24-28).




Red, White, Green: Italian celebrations, Columbus Day (October 12), Mexican Independence Anniversary (September 15 , since the 2000s), Christmas (December 24 and 25, until 1980s, when the color was changed to only red and green). View of the Empire State Building from RCA Building during the Columbus Day. October 12, 1977.




White for the rest of the year: the official Empire State Building light scheme color.





Since this first color scheme standar, the more color schemes were added to the Empire State Building and today, it have a great variety of color schemes for many national and international events, including pink light for gay pride celebration and recently, all the top of the building were illuminated by red that celebrates the fight against the AIDS. Since 2008, the building have a new generation of floodlights that made with LED system and color changes is controlled by computer. The new light scheme can illuminates each side of the building with a different color scheme for celebrating many festivities in one day, for example.

Christmas-Hannukah light scheme. 2009. The new lights scheme uses the new LED technology in building night illumination, friendly with ecology. Photo: Digiart2001. Flickr. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/digiart...n/photostream/




A clasis night view of Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building with the Empire State Building illuminated with red, white and yellow lights. 1979.





Since the Empire State Building was illuminated with color lights, in 1976, many other skyscrapers on New York were illuminated with floodlights: in 1980 the top of the Woolworth Building were illuminated with Green and White. In 1981, the top of Chrysler Building were illuminated with neon lights according with the original light scheme designed by William van Allen, in 1930. In these year, the top of Metropolitan Life Tower were also illuminated, and in 1984, all of buildings of Rockefeller Center were illuminated with floodlights. The top of modern buildings also were be illumniated: in 1983 the Citicorp Center were illuminated with white floodlights and in mid 1980s, the crown of 1972 One Astor Plaza tower were illuminated. Now, the top of many old and new buildings were illuminated during the nights.

Next. A general panorama of the city's skyscraper evolution in 1976. The Bicentennial year



if you have some commentary or add some picture to this forum, please show it.

Merry Christmas 2010

[erickchristian]

1976

Hi friends!!! Welcome back on this travel through the history of New York skyscrapers during the 20th Century. Now, continuing our trip in the 1970s, I show a general panorama of the evolution of the city skyline during 1976. In 1976 James Cartes win the federal elections and America celebrates its Bicentennial in the middle a deepest moral, economic, and social crisis. New York City starring the most spectacular of Bicentennial celebrations with a spectacular "Operation Sail", in the morning of July 4, that covered the Hudson River and the bay with hundred of historical ships and, on the night, the sky was covered of fireworks and the event ended with a spectacular celebration on the Statue of Liberty, and the illumination of the top of the Empire State Building with blue-white and red floodlights.





Cover of the Daily News of July 4, 1976. Photo: deepthirteen. Flickr. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2321404...n/photostream/




The spectacular event give to Americas some trust on the future, after the crisis in Vietnam, the energetic crisis, and the Watergate scandals, But the socioeconomic situation in the great city was even far to be better. The fiscal crisis continuing strokes the city's economy and social tension was palpable on forgotten areas by the autority, specially in areas as Harlem and the Bronx. The office-building construction continuing on crisis, and only great event capted the attention of architectural criticism: the inauguration of the new 40-story One United Nations Plaza that was oficially introduce the postmodernism on the city's skyscraper architecture. Perhaps, the construction of a new office supertall, the Citicorp tower, and the inauguration of a another mixed-use building: the 55-story Olympic Tower, gave to the city the first signs of financial recovery that will be experiment in few years.

Buildings that be completed and open during 1976:

• 55-story Olympic Tower
• 40-story One United Nations Plaza
• 42-story 3 Park Avenue Building
• 40-story New York Telephone Building (next to Manhattan's entrance to Brooklyn Bridge).
• 44-story Federal Building addition.

Construction activity continued on the nex buildings:

• 59-story Citicorp Tower

Since late 1975 a new city panorama can see from the Twin Towers: on the top of the new World Trade Center South Tower (2WTC) Observatory Room, 110 stories above the street. In 1976 the original World Trade Center complex was completed with the conclusion of 9-story 4 WTC Building and the inauguration of the new Windows of the World restaurant on the 107-floor of North Tower (1 WTC).

Now, a general panorama of the city on 1976

Lower Manhattan's Financial District skyline looking west from Brooklyn Heights. January 1976.




Steel skeleton of the Citicorp Tower to be rises. In the lower floors works of the installation of the aluminum facade was begun. March 1976. Photo: Architectural Record Magazine.




Lower Manhattan looking northeast from the recently opened Observation Roof on the 110 floor of World Trade Center's South Tower (2 WTC). May 1976. The Brooklyn Bridge appears at center of the picture.




Times Square new skyscrapers from Empire State Building. May 1976. The 54-story One Astor Plaza appears on the center of the picture.




Sixth Avenue skyscrapers from the Empire State Building. May 1976.




The General Motors Building aand the Sherry-Netherland Hotel tower as seen from Central Park. June 1976.




The Rockefeller Center looking west from Newsweek Building (former 444 Madison Avenue Building. June 1976. Behind the original Center, can be seen the new Sixth Avenue skyscrapers including the new Rockefeller Center's 1970 expansions.





Interior of the new Windows of the World restaurant on World Trade Center's North Tower 107 floor. July 1976. Photo: Ezra Stoller.




The Sixth Avenue's new skyscrapers. View looking north from 45th Street. July 1976.




The new 40-story One United Nations Plaza. View looking northwest from U.N. Secretariat Building. July 1976. The tower under construction on the far right of the picture is the Citicorp Tower. Photo: Ronald Livieri. ARCHITECTURAL RECORD MAGAZINE.




Night view of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center from Hudson River. July 1976.




New and old skyscrapers surrounding the New York Public Library (foreground). Buildings from left to right: New York Telephone (1973), W.R. Grace Building (1973), Salmon Building (1928) and 500 Fifth Avenue Tower (1931). July 1976.




Midtown Manhattan looking west from East River. July 1976. Photo: Ronald Liviery. ARCHITECTURAL RECORD MAGAZINE.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking northeast showing the Times Square area's new skyscrapers, including the One Astor Plaza and the old Paramount Building (foreground). October 1976. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surviews.




Lower Manhattan looking north from Governors Island. October 1976.




Park Avenue's office buildings from the Seagram's plaza. November 1976. Notice the windows of the First National City Bank building (extreme right) that it be covered with reflective glass.




Night view of Times Square. November 1976.





Night view of Lever House. November 1976.





Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking north showing the Empire State Building. December 1976. Photo 1 of 2.




Photo 2 of 2.





The Lever House. December 1976.





Next. A 1977 special of the Citicorp Tower.




if you have some commentary or add some picture to this forum, please show it.

[lofter1]

So strange to say the word "Grants" atop One Astor Plaza (5th photo from the top). It was originally known as the W. T. Grant Buillding ...

W. T. Grant or Grants was a United States-based chain of mass-merchandise stores founded by William Thomas Grant that operated from 1906 until 1976. The stores were generally of the variety store format located in downtowns.

The name must not have been up there long; the building was completed in 1972, but ...

The W. T. Grant story ended in 1976 in the then-second biggest bankruptcy in US history

[erickchristian]

So strange to say the word "Grants" atop One Astor Plaza (5th photo from the top). It was originally known as the W. T. Grant Buillding ...



The name must not have been up there long; the building was completed in 1972, but ...

Thanks for you commentary and its information. In the 15th picture of the post (the aerial view of Times Square area), the top of One Astor Plaza appears without "Grants" sign. The picture was made by Skyviews Aerial Surveys in October of 1976 and I was scanned from a Dover's book "New York in Aerial Photography" (1978).

Probably the Grants sign were removed from the top of the One Astor Plaza during 1976, but I don't know, the accurate of the date that the sign was removed.

[erickchristian]

1977 SPECIAL

THE CITICORP
TOWER

Photo: Norman McGrath.

POSMODERNISM AND A CORPORATIVE DREAM AND
THE DISCORDY'S APPLE

Hi!!! Welcome back, on this trip through the histiory of New York skyscrapers during 20th Century. Now, continuing our travel during the 1970s, now begin 1977 with this special about the fabulous Citicorp Center, the 59-story posmodernist tower that marke a new age on Manhattan's history because this building was the symbol of the city's financial recovery and the begining the last office building boom that continues today.

Occupying the block bounded by 53th and 54th Streets, and Lexington and Third Avenues the 59-story aluminun and reflective-glass building was conceived by Hugh Stubbins and was designed as a combination of the minimalistic elements of late International Style, but many elements as the 9-story base and East wing, the combination of reflective blue-tinted glass and aluminun, but overall, the 45 degree angle inclination of this roof (designed by serving of solar energy collector) were incfluenciated by the ney requirements of posmodernism architecture.


Perhaps, the history of the Citicorp was a large battle between bussiness men ambitions (as was succeded with the World Trade Center) and people preservationism. The center of the discord was a church that occupied the building's future site.

The history of the building begun in 1968.



The Discordy's Apple


In 1968, the site for the future Citicorp was occupied by many old tenement buildings, the recently completed 17-story 880 Third Avenue Building (1965) and, in the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 54th Street was the St. Peter's Lutheran Church, a neighborhood's landmark church, that was turn to be the center of the discordy between the First National City Bank's new headquarters developmers and the neighborhood's people.


The First National City Bank was frecuently expand its operations, and in the west side of the site, since 1961 the company was occupied the 41-story 399 Park Avenue Building that was build by Kahn & Jacobs.

According with Robert A.M. Stern (1997):

"Donald Schnabel and Charles McArthur, the real state brokers who began the land assemblage, approached the First National Bank in the hopes of interesting them in establishing new corporate headquarters on the site, supplanting the dull building they occupied at 399 Park Avenue. Not only did the bank need additional office space; despite recent growth that had made them a rival to Chase Manhatan, they still lacked a strong public image" (Stern, Robert A.M., Mellins, Thomas., Fishman, David. New York 1960. Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial. New York. The Monacelli Press. 1997. Page 490).


The 41-story old headquarters of First National City Bank at 399 Park Avenue (Kahn & Jacobs, 1961). May 1961. Photo: Ezra Stoller.






A other perspective of the building. August 1961.




In 1968, the First National City Bank announced their intention to build a new headquarters building for relocating its operations and made public its intentions to buy all the land between Lexington and Third Avenue, and 53rd to 54th streets, just at west of the bank's current headquarters a popular opositions was made against the posibility of demolition of all the buildings on the land proposed for the new complex, included the autorities of the St. Peter's Lutheran Church, who begun an intensive and unsucessful campaign to save the landmark church.

The interest to First National City Bank to acquires and demolishes the old church was simple: the church occupies a key parcel that the devopers proposes to build the key pieces of the new bank's complex: a 1,780,000-square-foot supertower.

Stern (1997) continues:

"As the relators were buying up the block in 1968, they ofered to buy the church's property as well. The church had considered relocating to the United Nations development district, but the young pastor, Ralph E. Peterson, objected to the move. He had developed an active program directed to the area's office workers, including Theater at Noon, along with jazz-accompanied vesper services each Sunday, activities that had dramatically raised church attendance and encouranged the congregation to stay put" (Stern. 1997. Fragment).

The activism of the pastor to save the St, Peter's church was intensivelly encourangened, but, finally was no sufficent to save the old 1903 church, but he won the war preserving the congregation in the same site. In 1970 the First National City Bank was renamed only CITIBANK and all the corporation was renamed CITICORP. Finally in these year, the St. Peter's Lutheran Church was acquired by Citicorp under a agreement with church's autorities: the congregation with the condition of build a new church in the site of the new building.

Stern (1997) says:

"Even after the the bank agreed to move their headquarters to the site, the processe of assemblage moved slowly if steadily forward. One stricture, 880 Third Avenue (Herbert Tannenbaum, 1965), a banal office building on the southwest side of the block, at Fifty-third Street and Third Avenue, remained on the site because it was too new to justify acquisition and demolition. The key parcel on the block, St. Peter's Church, was finally acquired in 1970 when Citicorp (the new name of First National City Bank) agreed to pay the church a fee of $9 million for the building and to construct the shell of a new 40,000-square-foot church on the site. Thus the bank, as Andrew Alpern and Seymour Durst were to put it, was allowed "to obtain its new headquarters building in a sympathetic setting, ecumenically joing God and mammon to the benefit of both" (Stern. 1997. Fragment).

The design

For the design of the new building, in late 1970, Citicorp commisioned to the Cambridge, Massachusetts firm of Hugh Stubbins & Associates in association with Emery Roth & Sons. Stubbins made many sketches of the future building and study many possible solution on the trouble to accomodate the office tower and the church in the site. Stubbins proposed a 59-story 1,400,000 square-foot supertower, cladding with reflective-blue-glass and aluminum. The new building was supported by four supercolumns that supported all the building's weight.

The building's piece of the tower is the roof a 45 degree slope that crowned the building and was the result of many essays of the possible solutions for the roof that made by Stubbins in 1970.

Early sketches for the Citicorp. Hugh Stubbins. November 1970. Photo: Photobucket. Link: http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/b...e/Citicorp.jpg



According with Stern:

"By the time the entire site was assembled in 1973 at a cost of $40 million -the most expensive site ever- Stubbins and Peter Woytuk, his associate, in association with Emery Roth & Sons, and in consultation with Edward Larrabee Barnes, who had been advisind St. Peter's, had developed designs for the $128 million, fifty-nine-story, 1,780,000-square-foot building. The slender tower, clad in aluminum and reflective glass, was to be lifted above a new St. Peter's on four ten-story-high, 112-foot-tall, 24-foot-square colossal pylons or 'supercolumns.' The design also called for a seven-story building that filled the east-ernmost portion of the site and included offices as well as a came to be know as Citicorp Center, the shopping portion as the Market at Citicorp Center" (Stern. 1997. Pages 490-492).

Stern (1997) continues:

"The facade of the Citicorp tower, which featured alternating bands of glass and aluminum, was ordinary, but its slender proportions, shiny surfaces and the bold concluding element -a 160-foot-high roof with a forty-five-degree slope- gave it a memorable skyline presence. Its columns were placed at the midpoints of each side, creating open, cantilevered corners that further enhanced the tower's sense of dynamism. Six other schemes of the building were studied, including one with an offset core that sported two pitched rooftop elements, in opposing directions. The final scheme, with its south-facing slopped section, was choosen in the belief that it would contain 100 apartments under a terraced greenhouse facade in order to qualify for a zoning bonus" (Stern. 1997. Page 492).

First rendering of the Citicorp Center with the slop looking to west. 1971. Photo from Wired New York.com. Link: http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showth...?t=4090&page=5




The final scheme of the Citicorp Center with the sloped roof looking to south, and that was developted in 1973. Photo: Sleep New York web site. Link: http://sleepny.lefora.com/2010/03/15...ticorp-center/




Construction.

Demolition works on the site begun in summer of 1973, the old St. Peter's Church was demolished and the site was complety cleared in late 1973. Ground was broken for the Citicorp Building in January 1974 and excavation continued during the rest of the year. The first steel columns were raised on the site on early 1975.


Steel skeleton for the Citicorp Tower. View looking southwest from 54th Street and Third Avenue. December 1975. Photo: Architectural Record Magazine.




The steel structure of the Citicorp Center in March 1976. Photo: Architectural Record Magazine.




The 59-story Citicorp tower was topped out on October 6, 1976. The New York Times says about the topped out ceremony as "an occasion of a certn civic gravity" (Stern. 1997. Page 493). Times' reporter, Carter Horsley, said that the party was "'more meaningful than most' since the new Citicorp building would be the only major office construction to be completed in the following year" (Stern. 1997. Fragment).


Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking east showing the Citicorp Tower under construction. (top background, at left). February 1977. Photo: Skyview Aerial Surveys.




Opening

The building was completed during the summer of 1977 and the new office complex, that included the new St. Peter's Church was finally dedicated on October 12, 1977, and criticism were more positive with the new building.

Stern (1997) wrotes about the building:

"Paul Goldberger described it as a "'remarcably intelligent synthesis of a number of architectural themes that have been in the air for a number of years.' He saw the building as a possitive addition to New York: 'If in recent years the movement away from the boredom of the glass box has achieved more success in other cities, Citicorp puts New York back in the running as a place were new skyscrapers stand for something more than just rentable square feet.' And he placed Citicorp in the vanguard of contemporary architecture: 'The image is what architects have to come to call 'high-tech -smooth, sleek, utterly cool. If the elaborate facade of the Woolworth Building suggests a drafstman's anguished hours of meticulous drawing, Citicorp´s outside looks as if could have been designed only by a computer'" (Stern. 1997. page. 493).


The Citicorp Building (Hugh Stubbins & Associates, 1977). Photo: Norman McGrath. (From Robert A.M. Stern's New York 1960. New York. Monacelli. 1997. Page 491).




The Midtown Manhattan's skyline was dramatically changed with the presence of the Citicorp tower. View of the building from East River. June 1977.




Postmodernist sculpure: The triangular top

The most distinctive element of the Citicorp's shape is the 45-degree triangular roof that "crowned" the building's top. This element, originally designed for the installation to a solar energy collector, totally brokes with the aesthetic of traditional glass box that characterized the International Style's modernism to introduce the building to the Postmodernist aesthetic given a sculptural shape.

Acording with Architecture historial Eric P. Nash (1999) with the tower's roof:

"The Boston-based architect Hugh Stubbins violated two axioms of the Internationalist aesthetic in the construction of this building. The first was the absolute ban on applied symbolic decoration. The Citicorp's distinctive triangular top was the first purely crown on a skyscraper since the Art Deco era. The crown had an ostentible function -it was intented to be a solar panel in the energy conscious 1970s, but it never used as such, and ultimately became simply a design expresion. There was a ripple effect in the architecture form, like the discovery of the emperor's new clothes: flat tops were not an absolute verity after all, but simply another style among many to chose from. Citicorp laid the groundwork for the fanciful variationbs of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Phillip Johnson's Chippendale top of the AT&T Building, Helmunt Jahn's ball-topped 750 Lexington Avenue (1987), and the facet Louis Vuitton Headquarters (1999) by Christian de Pontzamparc on East 57th Street" (Nash, Eric P. Manhattan Skyscrapers. New York. Princeton Architectural Press. 1999. Page 141).

Detail of the Citicorp's top. Recent picture of the top of the building from RCA Building looking east. July 2009. Photo: hoveringcheesecake. Flickr.com. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/3447164...n/photostream/




From the corner of 53th Street and Second Avenue. July 1977.




Nash (1999) continues:

"Citicorp exemplifies a fascinating transition stage in postmodern design, because it embraces symbolism over structural expression, but still adheres to the unity of modernity in its lack of contextualism and its uniform style. The signage raplaces traditional city lampposts and strets signs, as if delivering a message from the future. Even the little corner newstand is painted a futuristic silver" (Nash. 1999. Fragment).


Engineering inovations

Another element of the building as the four columns that support all the building and was a innovative skyscraper design. The position of the new St. Peter's Church in the corner of Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, forced to the architects to redesign the tower's base, specially for give protection to the building against the stress extremely high winds to be occur in the city during the hurricane seasson, that would be the building vulnerable to extremely high winds that occur in hurrican season. According with Nash (1999):

"four supercolumns, flush with sides but moved in a centered at 72 feet from the the cantilevered corners, support the building along with the octogonal elevator core, which stands exposed in the center. Additional support is provided by the discreet bustle of the shopping mall in the rear, which functions like an anchorage on a suspension bridge to counteract the weight of the cantileiverd structure" (Nash. 1999. Page 141).

The building's four-columns base. Photo by: Shopping Diva. Flickr.com. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoppin...n/photostream/




Tower elevation. 1979.





Another innovation was the system that controled the oscilations of the building that consist in the diagonal windbraces that covered the entire building's structure and a great concrete mass that was installed inside the tower's triangular top roof.

According with Eric Nash (1999), the Citicorp was the first skyscraper on the world to use "a tuned mass damper, a 400-ton, 30-foot-square, 8 1/2-foot-thick block of concrete in the crown that slides on a thin layer of oil to convey its inertia to the building's structure high-wind stress. The mass is 'tuned' to counteract the oscilation of the swaying building, and reduces the motion by almost half. Diagonal windbraces, repeated on an eight-story module, run along the perimeter and are concealed by the skin" (Nash. 1999. Fragment).

1978: the structural crisis.

Few months after the Citicorp was complete, in early months of 1978, a Engineering student's cuestion discovered a great fatal structural trouble that it could jeopardize the structural stability of the skyscraper, causing its possible fall with a hurricane's winds. After anallized the student's cuestion, Hugh Stubbins discoverd that the bolted joins of the diagonal windbraces were screwed, instead of to be welded. The bolted joins "were vulnerable to stress in the extremely high winds that occur one every 16 or so years in New York" (Nash. 1999. Fragment). The discover was revealed few weeks before a grade 4 hurricane possiblely passes over New York, in summer 1978. Construction workers and engineers worked around the clock in the repairs of the building, bolted, steel reinforced plates over the joints" (Nash. 1999. Fragment). The hurricane passed without touch New York and the Citicorp Tower was saved.

Aerial view of the Citicorp looking northwest. 1978.




Aerial view of the tower looking west. October 1977.




Next, a general panorama of the city skyline in 1977.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[mailkeli raiwalui]

those photos of the citicorp center are great it's good to go back into the past to see notable new york structures being built my favorites are one Astor plaza the citicorp center and the world trade center

[erickchristian]

1977


Hello friends!!! We are back with this travel through the history of the skyscrapers of New York during 20th. Century. Continuing in this trip in the 1970s, today we show a general panorama of the evolution of the World's most famous skyline 1977.

1977 were the key year in the recent history of New York City. On the one side, the city underwent the worse consequences of the fiscal disaster of 1975 where all the social tensions that had been generated as a result of the deterioration of the services of infrastructure -educative services, of health, of health, electricity and maintenance of the streets-, the lack of uses and the increase of the social attendance between the ethnic minorities, as well as the lack of social commitment of the authorities in more and more controlling the high indices of criminality, even in the most elegant zones of Manhattan, was accumulated and exploded during the night of July 13 to 14, 1977, the day that happened the blackout.

Sunshine view of Lower Manhattan looking east from Hudson River during the blackout. July 14, 1977.




The Wikipedia have a complete coverage of the events of July 13 and 14 of 1977: Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_blackout.

According with Wikipedia:

"The events leading up to the blackout began at 8:37 p.m. EDT on July 13 with a lightning strike at Buchanan South, a substation on the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers in Westchester County. The Buchanan South substation converted the 345,000 volts of electricity from Indian Point to lower voltage for commercial use. A loose locking nut combined with a tardy upgrade cycle ensured that the breaker was not able to reclose and allow power to flow again. A second lightning strike caused the loss of two 345 kV transmission lines, subsequent reclose of only one of the lines, and the loss of power from a 900MW nuclear plant at Indian Point. As a result of the strikes, two other major transmission lines became loaded over their normal limits. Per procedure, Con Edison, the power provider for New York City and some of Westchester County, tried to start fast-start generation at 8:45 p.m. EDT; however, no one was manning the station, and the remote start failed.

At 8:55 p.m. EDT, there was another lightning strike, which took out two additional critical transmission lines. As before, only one of the lines was automatically returned to service. This outage of lines from the Sprain Brook substation caused the remaining lines to exceed the long-term operating limits of their capacity. After this last failure, Con Edison had to manually reduce the loading on another local generator at their East River facility, due to problems at the plant. This exacerbated an already dire situation.

At 9:14 p.m. EDT, over 30 minutes from the initial event, New York Power Pool Operators in Guilderland called for Con Edison operators to "shed load." In response, Con Ed operators initiated first a 5% system-wide voltage reduction and then an 8% reduction. These steps had to be completed sequentially and took many minutes. These steps were done in accordance with Con Ed's use of the words "shed load" while the Power Pool operators had in mind opening feeders to immediately drop about 1500 MW of load, not reduce voltage to reduce load a few hundred MW.

At 9:19 PM EDT the final major interconnection to Upstate NY at Leeds substation tripped due to thermal overload which caused the 345kV conductors to sag excessively into an unidentified object. This trip caused the 138 kV links with Long Island to overload, and a major interconnection with PSEG in New Jersey began to load even higher than previously reported.

At 9:22PM EDT, Long Island Lighting Company opened its 345 kV interconnection to Con Edison to reduce power that was flowing through its system and overloading 115 kV submarine cables between Long Island and Connecticut. While Long Island operators were securing permission from the Power Pool operators to open their 345 kV tie to New York City, phase shifters between New York City and New Jersey were being adjusted to correct heavy flows and this reduced the loading on the 115 kV cables. The Long Island operators didn't notice the drop in 115 kV cable loadings and went ahead with opening their 345 kV tie to New York City.

At 9:24 p.m. EDT, the Con Edison operator tried and failed to manually shed load by dropping customers. Five minutes later, at 9:29 p.m. EDT, the Goethals-Linden 230 kV interconnection with New Jersey tripped, and the Con Edison system automatically began to isolate itself from the outside world through the action of protective devices that remove overloaded lines, transformers, and cables from service. (Perrino 2007). Con Ed could not generate enough power within the city, and the three power lines that supplemented the city's power were overtaxed. Just after 9:27 PM EDT, the biggest generator in New York City, Ravenswood 3 (also known as Big Allis), shut down. With it went all of New York City. (Mahler 2005). By 9:36 p.m. EDT, the entire Con Edison power system shut down, almost exactly an hour after the first lightning strike. By 10:26 PM EDT operators started a restoration procedure. Power was not restored until late the following day. Among the fallout of the blackout was detailed restoration procedures that are well documented and used in operator training to reduce restoration time.

As a result of the 1977 blackout, the operating entities in New York fully investigated the blackout, its related causes, and the operator actions. They implemented significant changes, which are still in effect today, to guard against a similar occurrence. Despite these safeguards, there was a blackout in August 2003, although this was caused by a power system failure as far away as Eastlake, Ohio" (New York City Blackout of 1977. From Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 2011. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_blackout).

The effects of the blackout in the New York society were well-known: numerous fires in the marginalized zones of the city: Harlem, Bronx, Brooklyn and some zones of Queens. Massive looting and vandalism were in stores and businesses in the city (According with Wikipedia's article, in 35 squares of upper Broadway, for example, around 135 stores they were sacked, 45 of them were set afire). The ones in conflict were true battlefields between the plunderers (especially Afro-American, and Puerto Rican community) and the result was more than 500 wounded, in their majority police and more than 4500 arrests.

When the energy in the affected zones was recovered, the authorities made responsible to Con Edison company by negligence when not taking care of the alert of energy overload suitably.

One of the consequences of the blackout of the 77 was the that the ethnic minorities of the city, specially, the black population of Harlem and the Bronx began to take consciousness of their marginal social situation and, with music (as the Harlem and American South was made in the 1920's), they began to denounce the injustices that suffered in their community: the Hip-Hop culture was born.

Vandalism on the streets. July 14, 1977. Photo: Associated Press. From Locust St. blog. Link: http://inkhornterm.blogspot.com/2007...turn-1977.html.





In New York, the summer of 1977 also was the year in which the brutal crimes of infamous "Son of Sam" (David Berkowitz), who when he was arrest on August 1977, killing 6 young peoples, in the Bronx.

Son of Sam. Photo: Wikipedia. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam.




On the other side, in the architectonic ambit, the Citicorp Center, was dedicateed on October 1977. The 59-story skyscraper with its famous triangular sloped roof, was considered a pioneer of posmodernist movement, and that object of favorable criticisms. The Citicorp Center is the symbol of the trust recovery of the future of a city that economically began to recover of the damage of the fiscal crisis of 1975 and of the events of the 1977 blackout.

Another positive event in the social life of the city in 1977 is the opening of the discotheque Studio 54, where, in spite of the documented excesses of sex and drugs between the celebrities that went it, was a reference point of the Disco culture of late 1970s.


Studio 54. 1977. Photo from Supersabino Blog. Link: http://supersabinotango.blogspot.com...1_archive.html








Buildings that be completed and open during 1977:

• 59-story Citicorp Tower

Now, a general panorama of the city skyline in 1977.

Aerial view of One Penn Plaza and Madison Square Garden. January 1977.





Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking east. February 1977. The Citicorp Center under construction were visible in the top left of the picture. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




Aerial view of Times Square District. View looking north. February 1977. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking southeast from New Jersey. March 1977. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




The Lever House. March 1977.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking southwest, showing the Rockefeller Center (center) and Sixth Avenue skyscrapers (background). April 1977. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




Group of skyscrapers on Sixth Avenue. View looking north fron 42nd. Street. May 1977. The black and white bands of the center is the J.P. Stevens Building. The Equitable Life Building is visible on the right.




The 55-story Olympic Tower (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. 1976). View from Goelet Building. May 1977.




Impressive view of the Twin Towers of World Trade Center from its plaza. June 1977.




Lower Manhattan looking west from Brooklyn. June 1977.




The Lever House Building as seen from Seagram Building's 10th floor. June 1977.





The CBS Building as seen from 666 Fifth Avenue's 15 floor. June 1977.





The General Motors Building as seen from Central Park. June 1977. The model of the picture is 1977 Miss Mexico and actrees Felicia Mercado. Photo from Mexican women magazine from 1977.




Another impressive view of Twin Towers. June 1977.




Aerial view of Lower Manhattan skyline looking southwest from East River. July 1977. The WTC Twin Towers was dominated the skyline. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




Aerial view of Central Park lookiing south. Midtown and Lower Manhattan with Empire State and WTC are visible on background. July 1977.




Lower Manhattan looking north from Staten Island Ferry. July 1977. Photo from a 1979 article's introduction in a Mexican magazine Activa (now dissapeard).




The Empire State Building. View looking northeast showing Midtown Manhattan behind it. July 1977.




Aerial view of United Nations district from East River. July 1977.





Lower Manhattan skyline. View looking west from Brooklyn harbor. July 1977.




Summer in the City. View of Plaza District's skyscrapers and Central Park. from One Lincoln Plaza's roof. July 1977.




Midtown Manhattan looking northeast from RCA Building. Part of Citicorp Center are visible on the top of the picture. The Seagram Building are in the center and the old 41-story Rockefeller Center's International Building and the new 55-story slab of the Olympic Tower are visible on foreground. July 1977.




Midtown Manhattan looking northeast from Empire State Building. July 1977. The new 59-story Citicorp Center are visible on the top of the picture (right, over Pan Am Building).




New York skyline from the bay. The Statue of Liberty are on foreground. July 1977.




Night view of Lower Manhattan looking west from Brooklyn. July 1977.




Midtown Manhattan looking southwest from East River. July 1977.




Midtown Manhattan looking west from East River. The new 59-story Citicorp Tower dominates the skyline. July 1977.




The new 59-story Citicorp Center (Hugh Stubbing & Associates. 1977). View looking west from Second Avenue and 53rd Street. July 1977.




Rockefeller Center's Atlas statue and St. Patrick's Cathedral. July 1977. The Olympic Tower is on left.




Sunshine view of Lower Manhattan skyline. View looking west from Hudson River during the blackout. July 14, 1977. Photo 1 of 2.




Photo 2 of 2.




Aerial view of Lower Manhattan looking west. September 1977.




Lower Manhattan looking west from brooklyn. September 1977.




Night view of Empire State Building from RCA Building. September 1977.




Times Square in September 1977. Picture looking north.




Aerial view of Lower Manhattan Financial District looking southwest. September 1977.




Aerial view of Upper East Side looking southwest showing Midtown on background. October 1977.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking west. The Citicorp Center dominates the panorama. October 1977.




Aerial view of Citicorp Center. October 1977.





Glamorous night view of Lower Manhattan skyline. View looking east from Hudson River. November 1977.




Next, a general panorama of city skyline of 1978.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[erickchristian]

1978


Hi friends!!! Welcome back on this travel through the history of New York skyscrapers during the 20th. Century. Now, we are continuing with the 1970s with this thrip through 1978.

In 1978, although the social polarization and the delinquency were alarming, the city of New York began to undergo the first symptoms of economic recovery. Start years before, the authorities of tourism of the city maintained an impressive campaign tourist with the target to attract more visitors to the city. But this campaign was more agresive in 1978: with the slogan " I Love NY" (" love" it is represented with a heart) New York City, shows to the world the positive side of "The Big Apple". The campaign were a complete success: the world, in great masses goes to see the good things of the city: skyscrapers, Broadway, excellent restaurants and, in addition, the campaign promoves the city like an excellent place for the accomplishment of conventions and events.

For this reason, that optimism of the authorities and the economist and commercial tycoons, that in 1978 already was designing the profile of resurgent New York for the 1980s: the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the AT& T Building, the IBM Buiding was on the table of design, and the Battery Park City project, in the Low Manhattan, next to the World Trade Center was retaken, that had been suspended in 1975 by the fiscal crisis.

In 1978, the International Paper Company bought the 48-story 1166 Avenue of the Americas Building (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), that was empty since its completion in 1974.

In 1978 Real Estate developter, Donald Trump announces the remodelation of old 24-story Commodore Hotel (1920) next to Grand Central Terminal to turn to be the Hyatt Hotel.

In late 1978 a new 350-foot high antenna were added to World Trade Center's North Tower.

In 1978, general renovation of old 77-story Art Deco icon Chrysler Building was begun. Works continued until 1981.

Buildings under construction of 1978:

38-story AT&T Building (demolition of existing buildings on the site).
44-story IBM Building (demolition of old neo-gothic 20-story IBM Building of 1924)
45-story Hemsley Palace Hotel (demolition of existing building on the site behind Villard House).
33-story Gateway Plaza on Battery Park City (construction of fondations, that were unfinished since 1976, were restarted).

Now, a general panorama of 1978.

The Chrysler Building's gargoyle. View of Midtown Manhattan looking southwest from Chrysler Building. February 1978. Photo: Photo: George Tice.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking northeast. March 1978. Photo:Skyviews Aerial Surveys.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking southwest. March 1978. The Empire State Building and One Penn Plaza Building appear on left, on the top of the picture. Chrysler Building appears on right, on foreground. Photo: Skyviews aerial Surveys.




Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking southeast from RCA Building. May 1978. The Pan Am Building and part of Chrysler Building is in the center of the picture. The illuminated Beaux-Arts building of foreground (left) is the Hemsley Building (the former New York Central Building).




Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building. May 1978. The Empire State Building (center) and the Twin Towers (background) dominates the scene. The Grace Building (right) was totally illuminated.




The Citicorp Center. View looking west. May 1978. Photo: Norman McGrath.




Night view of the Empire State Building that was illuminated on its upper 30 floors with red, white and blue lights. View from Fifth Avenue. May 1978.




Aerial view of Upper East Side and part of Central Park between 59th to 70th Streets. View looking west. May 1978.




Midtown Manhattan looking northeast from Empire State Building. May 1978.




Aerial view of the Citicorp Tower. View looking northwest. May 1978.





Park Avenue. View looking southwest from Citibank's former headquarters building. May 1978.




Few aerial views of Midtown Manhattan in may 1978:

View looking west with the Chrysler Building on foreground.




Looking southwest. The Empire State (top of picture) dominates the skyline. The Chrysler and Pan Am Buildings appears on foreground. The One Astor Plaza appears on the extreme right, on foreground.




View looking west showing the Chrysler and Pan Am buildings (center), Third Avenue's skyscrapers (foreground) Rockefeller Center (right, at background) and Park Avenue's 1960's towers (extreme right).




View looking northwest, showing Central Park, Solow and General Motors Building (extreme right, at background).




Night view of Midtown Manhattan skyline looking east from Hudson River. May 1978: Photo 1 of 2.




Photo 2 of 2.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking west above 59th Street. May 1978.




Aerial view of Upper East Side. View looking southwest showing Grace Mansion (foreground) and Central Park (background). July 1978.




Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building. July 1978.





Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking northwest. July 1978. Photo: Skyviews Aerial Surveys





Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking west from East River showing United Nations Headquarters. August 1978.




Park Avenue's 1960's skyscrapers from Hemsley (former New York Central) Building. September 1978. Building from left to right: 41-story former Citibank Headquarters (1961), 48-story 299 Park Avenue Building (1967), 52-story Chemical Bank of New York Building (1964) and 55-story 245 Park Avenue Building (1966).





Lower Manhattan skyline looking east from Hudson River. October 1978. Construction activity was visible on the World Trade Center's North Tower (center), when the new 350-foot high antenna begun to rises up.




Next week, a general panorama of New York skyline on 1979.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[erickchristian]

1979


Hi!!! Welcome back on this trip trough the history of New York skyscrapers during the 20th Century. Now I show the last thread about the city in the 1979 with this general panorama of the evolution of Manhattan Skyline during 1979.

In 1979, while the world continues in crisis, the Islamic revolution rises over Iran and more of 50 US diplomats were kidnapped by Iranian Islamic forces, the Voyager 1 takes pictures of Jupiter and the Voyager 2 leaves the Earth in direction of Saturn and many people dances Disco Music, in New York signs of recovery was more evident and the construction activity were reactivated launching the next office building boom of the 1980s.

The most notable architectural event of the year was the announcement of plans for the World Financial Center project on Battery Park City landfill and the announcement of Donald Trum to develop his ego monument: the Trump Tower, was schedule for completion for 1983. New postmodern skyscrapers begun to rises in the city, specially in Midtown when the construction works for the new IBM and AT&T headquarters was under way, the transformation of the old Commodore in the Grand Hyatt Hotel was under way and the new 45-story Hemsley Palace Hotel, behind Villard House, in 50th Street between Madison and Park Avenue was rises over other Midtown buildings.

Buildings that was completed in 1979:

45-story Solow appartment tower.

Buildings that be rises during 1979:

45-story Hemsley Palace Hotel.
23-story WTC Vista Hotel.

Construction works was began during 1979 for the next future projects:

38-story AT&T Building (excavation).
44-story IBM Building (excavation)
33-story Gateway Plaza on Battery Park City (excavation).
50-story 101 Park Avenue Building (demolition of the old 19-story Architects and Design Building of 1919, and excavation)
52-story Museum Tower (demolition of existing buildings and excavation)
42-story Park Avenue Plaza (excavation)
68-story Trump Tower (demolition of 1929 10-story Stewart & Company store).
26-story Phillip Morris Headquarters Building (demolition of old 1939 Airlines Terminal Building)

Now, a general panorama of the city in 1979:

Midtown Manhattan looking north from RCA Building. February 1979.




Afternoon view of Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building. February 1979.




Night illumination of the Empire State Building during St.Patricks Day. March 1979.




Midtown Manhattan looking west from East River. March 1979.





Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking west from East River. May 1979.




The Citicorp Center in June 1979.




Night illumination of the Empire State Building during 4th of July festivities. July 4, 1979.




Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building. August 1979.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking northeast. September 1979.




Night illumination of the Empire State Building during United Nations Anniversary. October 1979.





The 52-story Solow Building from Fifth Avenue. October 1979.




Elevation of the General Motors Building. October 1979.





The Grace Building from Bryant Park. October 1979.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking northwest. November 1979.




Night illumination of the Empire State Building during Thanksgiving festivities. November 1979.




The Lever House. View from Seagram Building's Plaza. December 1979.




The 110-story Twin Towers of the World Trade Center with its new TV tower on the North Tower. December 1979.




Aerial view of the Empire State Building in December of 1979.





Next week, beginning the 1980s with a general panorama of the city skyline of 1980.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[erickchristian]

1980


Hi!!!. Welcome back on this trip through the history of New York skyscrapers during the 20th. Century. Now, we start the 1980s with a general panorma of city skyline evolution during 1980.

1980 was tragically remembered for the assination of John Lennon who was shot in his home entrance in the Dakota Building in December 8th, 1980. But in architectural items, 1980 was a great year in the city's skyscraper history. Many new buildings, few of this were build under the new canons of postmodernist movement, were under construction and the 1970s look of the city began to change.

Buildings that was complete in 1980:

• 45-story Hemsley Palace Hotel

Buildings under construction during 1980:

23-story 3 WTC (Vista Hotel).
38-story AT&T Building (excavation).
44-story IBM Building (the building begun to rises up during the spring of 1980)
33-story Gateway Plaza on Battery Park City (buildings begun to rises on Autum 1980).
50-story 101 Park Avenue Building (excavation. The building begun to rises up in the end of 1980)
52-story Museum Tower (building begun to rises up in the end of 1980)
42-story Park Avenue Plaza (the building begun to rises up in early 1980)
68-story Trump Tower (excavation).
26-story Phillip Morris Headquarters Building (exxcavation. The building begun to rises in Autum 1980).

Now, a general panorama of the city in 1980.

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in january 1980.




The Citicorp Center in March 1980. View from Second Avenue.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan looking southwest from East River. March 1980.




Aerial view of New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty. April 1980.




Night view of Midtown Manhattan looking southwest from RCA Building. April 1980. Photo 1 of 2.




Photo 2 of 2.




Lower Manhattan looking west from Brooklyn Harbor. May 1980.




The Solow tower and the Plaza Hotel. May 1980.




Impressive view of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. May 1980.




Impressive view of Times Square looking north from Paramount Tower, that show its legendary clock. May 1980.




The old city and the new city: The old Trinity Church looks very small with the Twin Towers on background. May 1980.




Cleaning works on the RCA Building's facade on Rockefeller Center. July 1980.

.


Next, a 1981 special of World Trade Center: the 3 WTC (Vista Hotel)


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[erickchristian]

1981 SPECIAL


THE WORLD TRADE CENTER (1973-2001)

PART 4

3 WTC BUILDING
(VISTA HOTEL)

Hi!!! Welcome back on this trip trough the history of the New York skyscrapers during the 20th Century. Now, continuing with the early 1980s, show the four part of the special that begun in 1973 dedicated of the history of the original World Trade Center. Now, this special was dedicated to the 3 WTC building, the Vista Hotel (later knew as Marriott WTC) and tragically was destroyed when the Twin Towers collapses over it on September 11, 2001.

The 23-story 3 WTC building was also knew as the Vista Hotel, located between the Twin Towers, on West Street and Liberty Street, was the last building that be built for the Minoru Yamasaki’s original plan for the World Trade Center in early 1960s, and was considered unavailable when the city was on fiscal crisis in the early and mid 1970s, but finally was designed for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill until late 1970 and was considered the first hotel that built on Lower Manhattan’s Financial District since the opening of the Astor House in 1846.

According with Robert A.M. Stern in his book, New York 2000 Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium (2006):

“Originally planned in the late 1960s as a 450-room facility, the hotel was virtually doubled in size by the time SOM was called in the design the building in 1978. Opened by Hilton International under a thirty-year contract with the Port Authority, the twenty-three-story, 825-room, 534,000 square-foot Vista was dwarfed by the 110-story World Trade Center buildings (Minoru Yamasaki and Emery Roth & Sons, 1973). Although the architects chose a light anodized aluminum skin with a silvery sheen in order to be ‘in a same design vocabulary as the two towers,’ they felt were able ‘to maintain the hotel’s own architectural identity’ with the contrasting horizontal emphasis” (Stern, Robert A.M.; Fishman, David; Tilove, Jacob. New York 2000. Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium. New York. The Monacelli Press. 2006. Pages 264-265).

Construction

Construction works for the Vista Hotel in February 1981. View from Battery Park City landfill with the Twin Towers above the new hotel.




View of Lower Manhattan looking east from Hudson River. February 1981. The World Trade Center appear in the center, and the new 3 WTC (Vista Hotel) in construction were under the Twin Towers.

Financial Success

The building begun to rises in mid 1979 and was opened in the Summer of 1981. At the time of its opening the Vista Hotel was considered a financial success and was a great influence on the opening of hotels and residential towers on Financial District during the 1980s and 1990s, included the development of the future Battery Park City’s and the development of the development of the World Financial Center, on the other side of West Street. The success of the Vista was influenced by its innovative design, classified under the canons of the Postmodernist movement, and the facilities of housing for the national and international financial workers who work and come to World Trade Center and Financial District’s adjacent buildings, and contributed to the final consolidation of the WTC complex as the Center of the Global Tardo-Capitalist World.

According with Stern (2006):

“The Vista’s principal entrance was on West Street, where the building took on a surprising specificity as it hugged the roadbed’s curving trajectory. The editors of the AIA Guide were impressed by the ‘handsome’ hotel with ‘its elegant… curtain wall,’ declaring it ‘better than… its enormous WTC neighbors ‘ even though it understandably looked ‘out of place.’ Well aware of its ‘isolated’ location, the Vista included substantial recreational amenities, including a swimming pool, jogging track, gymnasium, and two racquet-ball courts. The hotel’s operators also offered express bus service to midtown, organized tours of Lower Manhattan, arranged for a Lower East Side weekend shopping package, and emphasize in its promotional literature that fifty percent of the room offered views to the Statue of the Liberty. Writing on the New York Times nine months after its opening, Laurie Johnston deemed the Vista, with its ‘austerely elegant two-level-lobby,’ a success, ‘bringing new life’ to the area, despite the fact that it was ‘more than three miles south of the midtown hotel heartland and almost in a world or at least city, of its own’” (Stern. 2006. Page 265).

The hotel was a complete success that made new life to the Financial District until February 26, 1993, when the extreme terrorism came to the city and a bomb was damaged the building concourse. Renovated few months after, the hotel continuing operating under the control of the Marriott Hotel until the tragic events of September 11, 2001, but this history will be told by other occasion.


View of the World Trade Center from Hudson River showing the new Vista Hotel (3 WTC by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1981). 1982.



Aerial view of the Twin Tower with the new Vista Hotel between it. July 1981.




Detail of the hotel's reflective glass and aluminum facade. 1997. Photo: Horacio Patrone. Flickr. Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8423774...-53101853@N00/



Next, a general panorama of 1981.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[erickchristian]

1981

Hi friends!!! Welcome back on this travel through the history of New York skyscrapers during the 20tH Century. Now, continuing with the 1980s, I show a general panorama of the evolution of the city's skyline during 1981.

In 1981, while Ronald Reagan inaugurated his presidential period and America lives the fever of the spaces travels and the humanity discover the new faces of Jupiter and Saturn thanks of the pictures send by the Voyager I and 2 and MTV begun its transmitions changing the television and rock culture, New York was under the way of the financial recovery and its new optimism, linked by the neoliberal Wall Street ambitions were reflected in the new office and residential building boom that experimented the city.

In 1981 Cesar Pelli was commisioned by the city authorities for the design and construction of the new World Financial Center and construction activity were more intensive in Battery Park City with the rise of the Gateway Plaza, schedule for its completion for 1982.

In fact, many office and residential buildings were completed in 1981:

42-story Park Avenue Plaza (The building were completed in late 1981)
23-story 3 WTC (Vista Hotel).

Buildings were under construction in 1981:

• 38-story AT&T Building
• 44-story IBM Building
• 33-story Gateway Plaza on Battery Park City
• 50-story 101 Park Avenue Building
• 52-story Museum Tower
• 68-story Trump Tower (the building begun to rises up in autum 1981).
• 26-story Phillip Morris Headquarters Building

Construction activity were begun on the next buildings

• 44-story Continental Building (Excavation. The building begun to rises up in the summer of 1981).
• 33-story Lehman Brothers Building on South Street Seaport (excavation)
• 44-story Wang Building on Third Avenue and East 48th Street (demolition of existing building and excavation)
• 40-story Two United Nations Plaza (Excavation. The building begun to rises on the summer of 1981).
• World Financial Center on Battery Park City (in design phase. First excavation works for the Down Jones and the future American Express Building begun in late 1981).
• 27-story 101 Barclay Street Building (excavation. The building begun to rises on late 1981).

Now, a general panorama of the city in 1981:

Final design for the World Financial Center, by Cesar Pelli, on Battery Park City Development. 1981.




Lower Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge. January 1981.




Lower Manhattan looking east from Hudson River in January 1981. Between the Twin Towers appears the Vista Hotelo (3 WTC) under construction.




Lower Manhattan's Financial District skyline as seen from Brooklyn Harbor. January 1981.




Midtown Manhattan looking southwest from East River, showing the United Nations. January 1981.




The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as seen from Battery Park City's landfill. View looking north. February 1981.




Night view of Lower Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn Harbor. View looking west. February 1981.




Night view of Lower Manhattan looking east from Hudson River. February 1981.




Aerial view of Midtown Manhattan skyline in the distance from New Jersey suburbs. March 1981. Photo: National Geographic Magazine.




Old and New New York: old 1920's Art Deco Paramount Building and the agressive lines of the modern early 1970s One Astor Plaza. March 1981.




Aerial view of the Grand Central District. View looking north with the Pan Am Building in the center, the Chrysler Building in the extreme right. The building under construction on foreground is the 101 Park Avenue Building. Building under construction, just below the Grand Central Station, on left, is the new Phillip Morris Building. Photo: Skyview Aerial Surveys.




Aerial view of Lower Manhattan looking south from Hudson River in April 1981. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center dominates the scene. The buildings under construction of the right is the Gateway Plaza, the first residential complex that was developted on Battery Park City landfill.




Night view Midtown Manhattan looking south from RCA Building in April 1981.




Aerial view of the Twin Tower of the World Trade Center. View looking east showing between it the new Vista Hotel recently completed. July 1981.




Sixth Avenue's Rockefeller Center skyscrapers as seen from the Empire State Building. July 1981.




Night view of the Empire State Building and adjacent buildings from RCA Building. July 1981.




The Lower Manhattan Skyline as seen from Brooklyn Heighs. September 1981.




Aerial view of Lower Manhattan looking northwest. October 1981.




Midtown Manhattan looking north from the RCA Building in December 1981. The Building under construction on foreground (center, at left of Solow Building) is the new Cesar Pelli, Posmodernist Museum of Modern Art Tower (Museum Tower). Central Park appears in background.





Next week, a general panorama of the City skyscraper evolution on 1982.


IF YOU HAVE A SOME COMENTARY OR LIKE TO ADD A PICTURE OF NEW YORK CITY'S SKYSCRAPER HISTORY, PLEASE SHOW IT.

[mariab]

Erikchristian, great work as usual, & Thank You for putting in the time & effort.

[phxmania2001]

Some of the photos from the last several posts are from Bill Harris' coffee table books, no?

[erickchristian]

Some of these pictures are from Bill Harris' book: "New York, City of Many Dreams". Crescent Books. 1983.