70 Pine Street

70 Pine Street is a 66 story, 952 foot (290 m) tall building in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The official address is 70 Pine Street, New York, NY 10270 and is also bordered by Cedar Street and Pearl Street. It was completed in 1932 by the Cities Service Company for the oil and gas baron Henry Latham Doherty. This was during the New York skyscraper race, which accounts for its gothic-like spire-topped appearance, a popular architectural style at that time. When completed it was the third tallest building in the world, after only the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. It was the last skyscraper to be built in Lower Manhattan prior to World War II. It was the tallest building in Downtown Manhattan until the 1970s when the World Trade Center was completed. Upon the 9/11 Attacks, it regained the status of the tallest downtown building. It is currently the sixth tallest in New York City, after One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, the Bank of America Tower, the Chrysler Building, and the New York Times Building, and the 17th tallest in the United States. As of 2012, it was the 73rd tallest building in the world. The building is usually referred to simply as American International. It was previously owned by Cities Service Company and called the Cities Service Building; Cities Service sold it to the American International Group (AIG) when moving company headquarters to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was owned by AIG and used for that company's world headquarters but sold in 2009.
One of the most famous themes of the limestone-clad tower is a mountain with a snow cap. The building features an open air platform with an enclosed glass observatory above it on the 66th Floor, offering a higher view of downtown than from any building. This observatory, which was once public, is now accessible only to executives and employees of AIG. The tower was originally and famously built with double-decker elevators that served two floors at a time to provide sufficient vertical service for the narrow tower and its limited elevator shafts. Soon afterwards, these elevators were removed because of their low popularity; however, the Citigroup Center adopted this same idea in the 1970s.
After AIG's financial struggles in 2008, 70 Pine St was eventually sold to developer Youngwoo & Associates in 2009. Plans include leasing the lower floors as office space and converting the upper floor to luxury condominiums. The building was designated a New York City Landmark and Interior Landmark in June 2011.

Equitable Building

The Equitable Building is a 38-story office building in New York City, located at 120 Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. A landmark engineering achievement as a skyscraper, it was designed by Ernest R. Graham and completed in 1915. The controversy surrounding its construction contributed to the adoption of the first modern building and zoning restrictions on vertical structures in Manhattan. Although it is now dwarfed by taller buildings in its vicinity, it still retains a distinctive identity in its surroundings on Lower Broadway. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978.
The building was constructed as the headquarters of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. The site had previously been intended in 1906 for a 62-story tower designed by Daniel H. Burnham, but the project had been postponed. When the Equitable's previous headquarters were destroyed by fire in 1912, the site was chosen as the location of its new headquarters. It was originally intended to be 40 stories high, but it was reduced by four floors on the advice of consulting engineer Charles Knox, who determined the lower height as being optimal for its elevators.
Opponents of the buildings were outraged at the unprecedented volume of the building, which cast a 7 acre (28,000 m²) shadow on the surrounding streets, casting a permanent shadow on the Singer Building up to its 27th floor, the City Investing Building up to its 24th floor, and completely cutting off sunshine to at least three other buildings shorter than 21 stories. Many New Yorkers reasoned that further construction of buildings like it would turn Manhattan into an unpleasant and dark maze of streets. In response, the city adopted the 1916 Zoning Resolution which limited the height and required setbacks for new buildings to allow the penetration of sunlight to street level. Specifically, new buildings were afterwards required to withdraw progressively at a defined angle from the street as they rose, in order to preserve sunlight and the open atmosphere in their surroundings. As a consequence of the new restrictions, the building remained the largest office building by floor area in the world until the construction of Chicago's Merchandise Mart in 1930.
The effort to place restrictions on land use in New York City led to the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act, a key piece of legislation in the history of zoning. The act became the blueprint for zoning in the rest of the country, and was accepted almost without change by most states.
In March 1942, a seven-inch shell struck the 37th floor of the building but caused little damage and no injuries. The shell was one of eight fired by an anti-aircraft battery near the East River by mistake. The other rounds all fell harmlessly into the river.

Description
The building is in the neoclassical style, rising 538 ft (164 m) with a total floor area of 1,849,394 square feet (176,000 m²), giving a floor area ratio of 30. Upon its completion, the building was the largest (in total floor area) in the world. It rises as a single tower with the appearance of two separate identical towers standing side by side, connected by a wing for the whole height of the building, such that it appears in the shape of the letter "H" when viewed from above. A striking feature of the building by modern standards is that it has no setback from the street beyond the depth of the sidewalk, rising vertically for all its floors.
The building has a through-block entrance lobby with a pink marble floor, sand-colored marble walls and a vaulted, coffered ceiling. It has approximately 5,000 windows. It once housed the exclusive Bankers Club on its top three floors. The white marble of the building is Yule marble, quarried in Marble, Colorado and which is also the source used for the Tomb of the Unknowns and the Lincoln Memorial.
The building occupies the entire block, and is bordered by Broadway to the West, Cedar Street to the North, Nassau Street to the East, and Pine Street to the South.

Hearst Towe

The six-story base of the headquarters building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst and awarded to the architect Joseph Urban. The building was completed in 1928 at a cost of $2 million and contained 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2). The original cast stone facade has been preserved in the new design as a designated Landmark site. Originally built as the base for a proposed skyscraper, the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition was completed nearly seventy years later, and 10,000 Hearst employees moved in on 26 June 2006.
The tower – designed by the architect Norman Foster, structurally engineered by WSP Cantor Seinuk, and constructed by Turner construction – is 46 stories tall, standing 182 meters (597 ft) with 80,000 square metres (860,000 sq ft) of office space. The uncommon triangular framing pattern (also known as a diagrid) required 9,500 metric tons (10,480 tons) of structural steel – reportedly about 20% less than a conventional steel frame. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after September 11, 2001. The building received the 2006 Emporis Skyscraper Award. citing it as the best skyscraper in the world completed that year.
Hearst Tower is the first "green" high rise office building completed in New York City, with a number of environmental considerations built into the plan. The floor of the atrium is paved with heat conductive limestone. Polyethylene tubing is embedded under the floor and filled with circulating water for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Rain collected on the roof is stored in a tank in the basement for use in the cooling system, to irrigate plants and for the water sculpture in the main lobby. 85% of the building's structural steel contains recycled material. Overall, the building has been designed to use 26% less energy than the minimum requirements for the city of New York, and earned a gold designation from the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification program, becoming New York City's first LEED Gold skyscraper.
The atrium features escalators which run through a 3-story water sculpture titled Icefall, a wide waterfall built with thousands of glass panels, which cools and humidifies the lobby air. The water element is complemented by a 70-foot-tall (21 m) fresco painting titled Riverlines by artist Richard Long.

Lipstick Building

The Lipstick Building (also known as 53rd at Third) is a 453 foot (138 meters) tall skyscraper located at 885 Third Avenue, between East 53rd Street and 54th Street, across from the Citigroup Center in Manhattan, New York City, United States. It was completed in 1986 and has 34 floors. The building was designed by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson. The building receives its name from its shape and color, which resemble a tube of lipstick.

Description
At three levels, blocks of the Lipstick Building recede as part of Manhattan's zoning regulation in which the building is required to recede within its spatial envelope, to increase the availability of light to street level. The result is a form that looks as though it could retract telescopically. The shape, which is unusual in comparison to surrounding buildings, uses less space at the base than a regular skyscraper of quadrilateral footprint would use. This provides more room for the high numbers of pedestrians who travel via Third Avenue.
At the base, the building stands on columns which act as an entrance for a vast post-modern hall. They are two stories high and separate the street from the nine-meter high lobby. Because the elevators and emergency staircases are located to the rear of the building, this area is "hollow".
The exterior of the building is a continuous wall of red enameled Imperial granite and steel. The ribbon windows are surrounded by gray frames. In between each floor is a small line of red which is taken from the red color of lipstick. The curvature of the building allows light to reflect off the surface at different places.

Time Warner Center

The Time Warner Center is a pair of interconnected mixed-use skyscrapers developed by AREA Property Partners (formerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors) and The Related Companies in New York City. Its design, by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, consists of two 750 ft (229 m) twin towers bridged by a multi-story atrium containing upscale retail shops. Construction began in November 2000, following the demolition of the New York Coliseum, and a topping-out ceremony was held on February 27, 2003. The property had the highest-listed market value in New York City, $1.1 billion, in 2006.
Originally constructed as the AOL Time Warner Center, the building encircles the western side of Columbus Circle and straddles the border between Midtown and the Upper West Side. The total floor area of 260,000 m² (2.8 million ft²) is divided between offices (notably the offices of Time Warner Inc. and an R&D Center for VMware), residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel. The Shops at Columbus Circle is an upscale shopping mall located in a curving arcade at the base of the building, with a large Whole Foods Market grocery store in the basement. The complex is also home to a 1,200 seat theater for Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as CNN studios, from where Anderson Cooper 360° and Piers Morgan Tonight among other shows, are broadcast live. CNN's Jeanne Moos, known for her offbeat "man on the street" reporting, frequently accosts her interview subjects just outside the building. In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center announced a partnership with XM Satellite Radio which gave XM studio space at Frederick P. Rose Hall to broadcast both daily jazz programming and special events such as an Artist Confidential show featuring Carlos Santana. As of August 2011, Jazz at Lincoln Center's The Allen Room is the former recording studio for Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show, Anderson. Anderson recorded there for only 1 season. It is now recorded at the CBS Broadcast Center in Studio 42 where the now defunct The Nate Berkus Show filmed.

Design and construction
Construction was delayed for nearly 15 years after Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties initially won a bidding contest to buy the property from the Coliseum's owners, the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Boston proposed to build two 63-story buildings to be designed by Moshe Safdie on the 4.5-acre (18,000 m2) Coliseum site in 1985. Unsuccessful competitors for the site included Donald Trump who proposed building a 137-story, 1600-foot (488 m) high building which would have been the world's tallest at the time.
Boston's winning bid was $455 million for the site. It was to be the headquarters of Salomon Brothers. The building ran into intense opposition (including most prominently Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) who were concerned it would cast a shadow on Central Park. In 1988 a court ruled that the building violated the city's own zoning ordinances. At about the same time, Salomon Brothers backed out.
A renegotiated deal called for the building to be 52 stories with Boston paying a lower price of $357 million for the site. David Childs was tapped to redesign the building.
The building still languished until 2000 when the Coliseum was finally demolished. The Center, which now has 55 floors, markets it as an 80-story building.
The Time Warner Center was the first major building to be completed in Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks, although it was already under construction in 2001. While some New Yorkers noted the uncanny resemblance of the Time Warner Center to the fallen Twin Towers, the building's developer disclaimed to the press any intentional similarity.
The Sunshine Group was in charge of marketing the building. Sandie N. Tillotson bought the top floor of the then uncompleted north tower for $30 million shortly after the September 11 Attacks. It was a record for a condominium at the time. That sale would be eclipsed in 2003 when Mexican financier David Martinez paid $54.7 million for a penthouse condo, then a record for New York residential sales.
The building has several street addresses, including 10 Columbus Circle for offices, 25 Columbus Circle for the south tower that was named "One Central Park" and 80 Columbus Circle for The Residences at Mandarin Oriental. The address One Central Park West, meanwhile, belongs to the Trump International Hotel and Tower across the street, which is owned by Donald Trump. Upon the completion of the Time Warner Center, Trump made a "little joke" at the Time Warner Center’s expense by hanging a large sign on his building gloating, "Your views aren’t so great, are they? We have the real Central Park views and address."

40 Wall Street

Now known as The Trump Building, the magnificent structure at 40 Wall Street was once in a race to be the Tallest Building in the World.
In 1928, developer George Ohrstrom began amassing parcels of land so that he could realize his dream of building the world's tallest skyscraper. This commercial building was to be the headquarters for the Bank of Manhattan Trust Company and would be designed by H. Craig Severance, whose former partner William Van Alen was - at the same time - working on plans for the famed Chrysler Building.
Demolition and foundation-laying began in late 1929, taking just three weeks to complete - an astounding feat in itself. Motivated by the need to trump the Chrysler Building, workers completed the entire steel frame of the 72-story building in just 93 days and finished the project by May 1930, about a year after construction began.
For a brief time, Severance and partner Yasuo Matsui thought their building was the tallest in the world, until Van Alen revealed plans for the needle-like spire atop the Chrysler Building, instead making that building the tallest.

About the Building
Even though 40 Wall Street lost its title as the Tallest Building in the World, it did indeed become known as "The Crown Jewel of Wall Street", and has long dominated the skyline in Manhattan's Financial District. Its pyramid-shaped crown and gothic spire are easy to spot from various locations in New York and New Jersey.
40 Wall Street's beautiful bronze doors, topped by the sculpture "Oceanus", make for a grand entrance into the ornate interior, which includes a bank boardroom modeled after the Signer's Room inPhiladelphia's Independence Hall, and a magnificent two-story marble banking hall with world-renowned murals by Ezra Winter, whose work is featured in Rockefeller Center and many other NYC locales. The building became known for its 70th floor observatory and its 43 high-speed elevators.

A New Owner

After many years of struggle and low occupancy rates, caused in the early days by the Depression and World War II, the building switched owners several times and was even at one time owned by Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.
In 1995, Donald Trump purchased 40 Wall Street and completed millions of dollars in renovations. He had hoped to make it half-residential/half-commercial, but the building remains entirely commercial. Trump attempted to sell the building in 2003, but there were no takers that could match his asking price of $400 million.

American Radiator Building

In 1924, this stunning black-and-gold building added new character to New York's Bryant Park area.

Something Different
For Raymond Hood, what started out as a small job designing
radiator covers became so much more. When the American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Company decided to build a new showroom and office building on 40th Street near Fifth Avenue, the company turned to the man who had been creating their radiator covers and asked him to come up with a design for their new headquarters. Just a few months prior, Hood had become instantly famous for his unique winning design for the Chicago Tribune building and American Radiator was just one of many companies that pursued his talents.

Hood didn't let them down. The result was a 23-story, free standing mid-block office tower that was like nothing else in the Bryant Parkneighborhood... or in all of NYC, for that matter. Hood's design, which called for a black brick exterior, was far different from the stodgy brownstones that were prevalent in the area. Hood explained that he chose the black brickwork to "lessen the visual contrast between the walls and the windows and give the tower an effect of solidity and massiveness". The result was stunning.
The tower is neo-Gothic as is the magnificent bronze and marble entryway. Other aspects of the building are more akin to Art Deco, a style that would take the world by storm by the middle of the 1920s. Gilded terra cotta ornaments crown the tower. The four-story base features bronze plating and black granite. Bronze carved allegories sit at the top of the base.
Inside, the lobby was decorated with mirrors and black marble. The basement once held a large showroom, where the latest in boilers and furnaces were displayed to the buying public.
The American Radiator Building was officially declared a New York City Landmark in 1974. It was later sold to the American Standard Company and then a Japanese firm called Clio Biz. In the 1990s, British Architect David Chipperfield transformed the building into the Bryant Park Hotel, a charming boutique establishment.