The New York Times Building is a 52-story
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...
at 620
Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, on the west side of
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Its chief tenant is
the New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City.
History
The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...
, publisher of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. The building is tall to its pinnacle, with a roof height of . Designed by
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...
and
Fox & Fowle
FXCollaborative is an American architecture, planning, and interior design firm founded in 1978 by Robert F. Fox Jr. and Bruce S. Fowle as Fox & Fowle Architects. The firm merged with Jambhekar Strauss in 2000 and was renamed to FXFOWLE Architec ...
, the building was developed by the New York Times Company,
Forest City Ratner
Forest City Realty Trust, Inc. was a real estate investment trust that invested in office buildings, shopping centers and apartments in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and the greater metropolitan areas of New York Ci ...
, and
ING Real Estate
The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...
. The interiors are divided into separate ownership units, with the Times Company operating the lower office floors and
Brookfield Properties
Brookfield Properties is a North American subsidiary of commercial real estate company Brookfield Property Partners, which itself is a subsidiary of alternative asset management company Brookfield Asset Management. It is responsible for the pro ...
operating the upper floors. , the New York Times Building is tied with the
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
as the
eleventh-tallest building in the city.
The building is
cruciform
Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design.
Cruciform architectural plan
Christian churches are commonly described ...
in plan and has a steel-framed
superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
with a braced mechanical core. It consists of the office tower on the west side of the
land lot
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...
as well as four-story podium on the east side. Its
facade is largely composed of a glass
curtain wall, in front of which are ceramic rods that deflect heat and glare. The steel framing and bracing is exposed at the four corner "notches" of the building. The New York Times Building is designed as a
green building
Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...
. The lower stories have a lobby, retail space, and the ''Times'' newsroom surrounding an enclosed garden. The other stories are used as office space.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the city and state governments of New York proposed a merchandise mart for the site as part of a wide-ranging redevelopment of Times Square. In 1999, the New York Times Company offered to develop its new headquarters on the mart's site. Piano and Fox & Fowle were selected following an
architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a type of design competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel o ...
, and the land was acquired in 2003 following disputes with existing landowners. The building was completed in 2007 for over $1 billion. The Times Company's space was operated by
W. P. Carey
W. P. Carey Inc. is a real estate investment trust that invests in properties leased to single tenants via NNN leases. The company is organized in Maryland, with its primary office in New York City.
As of December 31, 2019, the company owned 1 ...
from 2009 to 2019; meanwhile, Forest City bought out ING's interest and was then acquired by Brookfield Properties in 2018.
Site
The New York Times Building is at 620
Eighth Avenue, occupying the eastern side of the avenue between 40th Street and 41st Street, one block west of
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
in the
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...
neighborhood of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
The
land lot
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...
is rectangular and covers .
It has a
frontage
Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...
of on Eighth Avenue to the west and on both 40th Street to the south and 41st Street to the north.
The site takes up the western half of its
city block
A city block, residential block, urban block, or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design.
A city block is the smallest group of buildings that is surrounded by streets, not counting any type of thoroughfare within t ...
, which is bounded by
Seventh Avenue to the east. The topography of the site generally slopes down from east to west.
The New York Times Building is near
Eleven Times Square
Eleven Times Square is an office and retail tower located at 640 Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eighth Avenue, at the intersection with West 42nd Street (Manhattan), 42nd Street, in the Times Square and Midtown Manhattan, West Midtown neighborhoods ...
and the
Empire Theatre to the north, the
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
's
Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism to the east, and the
Port Authority Bus Terminal
The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus station, bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving abo ...
to the west.
The site is directly bounded on two sides by
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...
tunnels.
An entrance to the New York City Subway's
42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal station, served by the , is next to the building's base.
Prior to the Times Building's construction, the site was occupied by a mixture of buildings.
The site had been proposed for redevelopment since 1981
as the southern half of an unbuilt merchandise mart (see ). At Eighth Avenue and 40th Street was a six-story building erected in 1963, which housed the
Taylor Business Institute and the
SAE Institute
The SAE Institute (SAE, formerly the School of Audio Engineering and the SAE Technology College) is a Private college, private For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit college with campuses and facilities, including license ...
. The address 260 West 41st Street contained Sussex House, an eight-story, 140-room dormitory,
as well as a mural advertising garment store Seely Shoulder Shapes. Behind it was a 16-story office building at 265 West 40th Street.
Sex shop
A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, pornography, and other related products.
An early precursor of the modern sex shop was a chain of stores set up in th ...
s, prostitution, and loitering were prevalent on the 41st Street side of the site.
Five sex shops had been relocated from the site before the building's development, out of 55 businesses total.
Architecture
![NY Height Comparison](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/NY_Height_Comparison.png)
The New York Times Building was designed by
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...
and
Fox & Fowle
FXCollaborative is an American architecture, planning, and interior design firm founded in 1978 by Robert F. Fox Jr. and Bruce S. Fowle as Fox & Fowle Architects. The firm merged with Jambhekar Strauss in 2000 and was renamed to FXFOWLE Architec ...
and was developed by
the New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City.
History
The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...
,
Forest City Ratner
Forest City Realty Trust, Inc. was a real estate investment trust that invested in office buildings, shopping centers and apartments in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and the greater metropolitan areas of New York Ci ...
, and
ING Real Estate
The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...
.
It was Piano's first design in New York City.
Gensler
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm founded in San Francisco, California, in 1965.
In 2021, Gensler generated $1.235 billion in revenue, the most of any architecture firm in the U.S. As of 2021, Gensler operated offices in 49 citi ...
designed the interior
under the supervision of
Margo Grant Walsh.
AMEC
Amec Foster Wheeler plc was a British multinational consultancy, engineering and project management company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. In October 2017, it was acquired by Wood Group.
It was focused on the Oil, Gas & Chemicals, M ...
was the main contractor for the core and shell, while
Turner Construction
Turner Construction is an American construction company with presence in 20 countries. It is a subsidiary of the German company Hochtief. It is the largest domestic contractor in the United States as of 2020, with a revenue of $14.41 billion in ...
was the contractor for the ''Times'' space in the lower section of the building.
Other companies involved with the project included structural engineer
Thornton Tomasetti
Thornton Tomasetti (formerly the Thornton-Tomasetti Group, Thornton Tomasetti Engineers, Lev Zetlin & Associates, LZA Technology and Weidlinger Associates) is a global, 1,500-plus person scientific and engineering consulting firm.
Services
Tho ...
, wind consultant
RWDI Established in 1972, Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI) is a specialty consulting engineering firm. The RWDI group of companies has offices in Canada, USA, United Kingdom, India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia. The compa ...
, sealant supplier
Dow Corning Corporation
Dow Corning Corporation, was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. Originally established as a joint venture between The Dow Chemical Company and Corning Incorporated, Dow bought out Corning and ...
, and steel supplier
ArcelorMittal
ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourgian multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg City. It was formed in 2006 from the takeover and merger of Arcelor by Indian-owned Mittal Steel. ArcelorMittal is the second larg ...
.
The
mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) refers to the installation of services which provide a comfortable space for the building occupants. In residential and commercial buildings, these elements are often designed by a specializeMEP engineerin ...
system was designed by Flack + Kurtz.
Officially, the
New York City Economic Development Corporation
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is a nonprofit corporation whose stated mission is to "leverage the city’s assets to create beneficial jobs that drive growth. This ensures equitable and sustainable development across al ...
owns the site.
The Times Building is 52 stories tall with one basement,
covering a
gross floor area
In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...
of .
It has two major
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...
s of office space:
a lower section operated by the New York Times Company and an upper section operated by
Brookfield Properties
Brookfield Properties is a North American subsidiary of commercial real estate company Brookfield Property Partners, which itself is a subsidiary of alternative asset management company Brookfield Asset Management. It is responsible for the pro ...
, which took over Forest City Ratner's stake in 2019.
The ''Times'' space on the 2nd to 27th stories covers , about 58 percent of the office space, while the 29th to 52nd stories spans , covering the remaining 42 percent.
The lobby and the mechanical spaces on the 28th and 51st stories are shared by the building's major operators.
The top floor is high.
The Times Building rises from the street to its roof, while the exterior curtain wall rises to and its mast rises to .
, including its mast, the New York Times Building is the
eleventh-tallest building in the city, tied with the
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...
.
The Times Building was designed as a
green building
Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...
.
During the building's construction, the architects created a mockup of a portion of the building to test out its environmental features.
A yearlong study by the
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
and
Center for the Built Environment
The Center for the Built Environment (CBE) is a research center at the University of California, Berkeley. CBE's mission is to improve the environmental quality and energy efficiency of buildings by providing timely, unbiased information on buildi ...
found the Times Building had significant reductions in annual electricity use, utilized less than half the heating energy, and decreased the peak electric demand compared to similarly sized office buildings. The developers did not wish to achieve
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a
green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...
(LEED) certification,
since that would have required extra expenditures, such as keeping track of construction debris.
Form and facade
The Times Building consists of two sections: the 52-story tower on the western portion of the site and a four-story podium occupying the eastern portion.
The tower section covers about ,
with dimensions of .
The corners of the tower are notched, creating a
cruciform
Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design.
Cruciform architectural plan
Christian churches are commonly described ...
layout.
The outer columns on the west and east elevations are recessed several feet into the building. The center
bays
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
of the north and south elevations are cantilevered slightly past the outermost columns to the north and south.
The podium measures .
The building contains a single basement level underneath the entire site, extending below grade.
There are three office entrances, one each on Eighth Avenue, 40th Street, and 41st Street.
The
facade consists of a glass
curtain wall, with ceramic rods mounted on aluminum frames in front of the curtain wall.
The facade was made by Benson Global, while the rods were subcontracted to a German sewer-pipe manufacturer.
In designing the building, Piano said he was influenced by the massing of the
Seagram Building
The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...
, also in Midtown.
Ceramic rods
There are about 186,000 ceramic rods in the building.
The rods, measuring in diameter, are mounted about in front of the curtain wall
and are carried on aluminum "combs".
The rods are made of aluminum silicate, a ceramic chosen for its durability and cost-effectiveness.
The rods are intended to deflect heat and glare even if the glass panes were not tinted,
and they can change color with the sun and weather.
The rod spacing increases from the base to the top,
adding transparency for the top of the usable space.
At each story, the rods contain a slight gap at eye level.
The rods extend about above the primary roof.
On the north and south elevations, the screens extend slightly past the notched corners.
The ceramic rods also rise to , above the main roof.
![Alain Robert NYT-Building 2008-06-05](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Alain_Robert_NYT-Building_2008-06-05.jpg)
On the Eighth Avenue elevation is a sign with the logo of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', designed by
Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut (born 1957) is a graphic designer, design critic and educator, who has been a partner at design firm Pentagram since 1990. He designed the logo for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
Early life and education
Michael Bier ...
of
Pentagram
A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle aroun ...
. Measuring long, the logo consists of the ''Times'' name in the
Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
font at a 10,116-
point
Point or points may refer to:
Places
* Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland
* Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States
* Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland
* Point ...
size.
The logo itself is made of 959 custom aluminum sleeves measuring about in diameter; these are wrapped around the ceramic rods.
Metal halide lamps are also mounted on the facade in front of the rods. They are painted yellow to resemble the
taxis of New York City
In New York City, taxicabs come in two varieties: yellow and green; they are widely recognizable symbols of the city. Taxis painted yellow (medallion taxis) are able to pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. Those painted apple green ( ...
.
The ceramic rods have attracted climbers, in part because the rods were originally spaced closely together.
Shortly after completion, in mid-2008, three men illegally and independently climbed the ceramic rods on the facade. On June 5, 2008, professional climber
Alain Robert
Alain Robert (born as Robert Alain Philippe on 7 August 1962) is a French rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man" (after the comic character Spider-Man) or "the Human Spider", Robert is famous for his free solo climbing ...
climbed the north elevation to protest global warming;
a second climber (Rey Clarke) scaled the west elevation later that day.
The third climber, a Connecticut man, scaled the building on July 9 to protest the terrorist group
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...
. As a result of these incidents, some of the ceramic rods were removed,
particularly on the north and south elevations, and glass panels were installed to deter climbing.
People still climbed the building in later years, including in 2012 and in 2020.
Glass wall
The glass curtain wall is composed of double-glazed
low emissivity
Low emissivity (low ''e'' or low thermal emissivity) refers to a surface condition that emits low levels of radiant thermal (heat) energy. All materials absorb, reflect, and emit radiant energy according to Planck's law but here, the primary conc ...
panels that extend from the floor to the ceiling of each story.
The panels generally measure wide and tall. The use of floor-to-ceiling glass was meant to signify the transparency of the media.
It also maximizes natural light and the physical transparency of the facade.
The window panes are generally protected by the ceramic rods. Since the rods contain a small gap at each story, the glass panels contain a small ceramic
frit
A frit is a ceramic composition that has been fused, quenched, and granulated. Frits form an important part of the batches used in compounding enamels and ceramic glazes; the purpose of this pre-fusion is to render any soluble and/or toxic compo ...
near these gaps.
At ground level, there are glass storefronts, which allows pedestrians outside to see into the lobby.
The notched corners contain exposed steel and lack screens, a design feature that represents the ideal of journalistic transparency.
Instead, the corners contain one- and two-story-high rods, which serve as bracing and are designed in a pattern resembling the letter "X" (see ).
Structural features
Substructure
Underneath the site is durable Hartland bedrock.
Before the tower was constructed, the contractors made three sets of
borings to extract samples of the composition of the ground. Directly underneath the tower portion of the site, the samples generally contained poor-quality
weathered
''Weathered'' is the third studio album by American rock band Creed, released on November 20, 2001. It was the last Creed album to be released until '' Full Circle'' came out in October 2009, with Creed disbanding in June 2004. It is the only Cr ...
and
decomposed rock at a depth of up to . The borings on other parts of the site and underneath the surrounding sidewalk generally contained competent rock at a shallow depth, which increased in quality at greater depths.
Furthermore, the northern lot line is adjacent to the
IRT Flushing Line
The IRT Flushing Line is a rapid transit route of the New York City Subway system, named for its eastern terminal in Flushing, Queens. It is operated as part of the A Division. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), a private operator, ...
subway tunnel (used by the ) below 41st Street, as well as a pedestrian passageway at a shallower level. The western lot line is adjacent to the
IND Eighth Avenue Line
The IND Eighth Avenue Line is a rapid transit line in New York City, United States, and is part of the B Division of the New York City Subway. Opened in 1932, it was the first line of the Independent Subway System (IND), and the ''Eighth Avenu ...
subway tunnel (used by the ) under Eighth Avenue.
The
foundation
Foundation may refer to:
* Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization
** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S.
** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...
had to be capable of supporting of pressure.
Most of the foundation is on intermediate- or high-quality rock and uses
spread footing
A shallow foundation is a type of building foundation that transfers structural load to the earth very near to the surface, rather than to a subsurface layer or a range of depths, as does a deep foundation. Customarily, a shallow foundation is cons ...
s capable of .
Caissons
Caisson (French for "box") may refer to:
* Caisson (Asian architecture), a spider web ceiling
* Caisson (engineering), a sealed underwater structure
* Caisson (lock gate), a gate for a dock or lock, constructed as a floating caisson
* Caisson (pe ...
with rock sockets are installed under the southeast corner of the tower section, where the weakest rock exists.
There are forty-two caissons with a diameter of , which extend between deep. They are reinforced with steel bars and could hold of vertical pressure.
They are filled with concrete with a
compressive strength
In mechanics, compressive strength or compression strength is the capacity of a material or structure to withstand loads tending to reduce size (as opposed to tensile strength which withstands loads tending to elongate). In other words, compre ...
of .
Superstructure
The building contains a
superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
with of steel.
More than 95 percent of the beams are made of recycled steel.
Steel was chosen over concrete because it allows flexible office spaces.
The superstructure contains box columns measuring in diameter. The
flange
A flange is a protruded ridge, lip or rim (wheel), rim, either external or internal, that serves to increase shear strength, strength (as the flange of an iron beam (structure), beam such as an I-beam or a T-beam); for easy attachment/transfer of ...
s range from thick at the base to thick at the top stories, giving a lighter appearance.
The beams are covered with
intumescent
An intumescent is a substance that swells as a result of heat exposure, leading to an increase in volume and decrease in density. Intumescent materials are typically used in passive fire protection and require listing, approval, and compliance in ...
coatings for fireproofing.
The floor slabs are a composite consisting of of concrete on a metal deck. They are designed to carry live loads of , as well as partitions weighing up to .
The ''Times'' stories contain a
raised floor
A raised floor (also raised flooring, access floor(ing), or raised-access computer floor) provides an elevated structural floor above a solid substrate (often a concrete slab) to create a hidden void for the passage of mechanical and electrica ...
structural system, with the finished office floors being above the floor slabs.
Conversely, on the upper stories, the finished office floors are the slabs themselves.
![NYT_Building_Nov_2021_13](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/NYT_Building_Nov_2021_13.jpg)
The superstructure of the tower is braced to the mechanical core, which measures .
This allows the perimeter of the tower stories to be no more than from the core.
The lower section of the tower, containing the ''Times'' offices, contains two sets of bracing frames that surround the core from north to south. The top 21 stories contain a single bracing line extends from north to south.
There are outriggers at the mechanical floors on the 28th and 51st stories.
"X"-shaped braces are used at the tower's corners because the elevator core limits the extent to which west-east bracing lines could be used.
The "X"-braces were pre-
tensioned during construction to compensate for the shortening of columns.
The braces are built in pairs, rather than as single rods, which would have required larger diameters.
On the north and south elevations, the center bays are cantilevered about past the perimeter columns.
The floor
girder
A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizing ' ...
s of the cantilevered sections are arranged into three framing lines: two at the outer ends of the cantilevers and one at the center.
The central girder on each floor is supported by a
Vierendeel truss
A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure.
In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
. The outer girders are connected to the perimeter columns by diagonal beams and to each other by columns.
Because the ''Times'' stories have raised floors, the girders on these stories protrude through the facade in an offset "dogleg".
The 51st-story mechanical space contains elevator rooms, air-conditioning, lighting, and telecommunications equipment, as well as a control area for the building's mechanical services.
The main roof above the 52nd story consists of an asphalt covering, above which are concrete
pavers on stone
ballast
Ballast is material that is used to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability. A compartment within a boat, ship, ...
.
The steel mast atop the building is about tall
and is made of
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
, allowing it to bend during heavy winds without snapping.
It extends from a circular baseplate on the 51st story, where it measures wide, and tapers to a width of at its pinnacle. The mast is also supported from the roof of the 52nd story. To support the mast, trusses were designed within the floor slabs on the 51st and 52nd stories, and vertical trusses were used to shift the weight of the mast to the columns below.
Mechanical features
The New York Times Building has a
cogeneration
Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time.
Cogeneration is a more efficient use of fuel or heat, because otherwise- wasted heat from elect ...
plant, which can provide 40 percent of the building's energy requirements.
It is variously cited as being capable of
or .
The plant is in a mechanical room on the top floor of the podium, at the far eastern end.
The cogeneration plant is powered by two
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
-fired engines. The New York Times Building is also connected to the main New York City power grid, which serves as a backup power source.
Because of a disagreement with
Consolidated Edison
Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 b ...
(Con Ed), the cogeneration plant is not connected to the grid.
The plant runs at 85
or 89 percent efficiency.
Heat is generated as a byproduct of the cogeneration plant's operation and is used to provide hot water. The recovered hot water is used in the building's perimeter heating system during the winter, while it is fed into the building's
chiller
A chiller is a machine that removes heat from a liquid coolant via a vapor-compression refrigeration, vapor-compression, adsorption refrigeration, or absorption refrigerator, absorption refrigeration cycles. This liquid can then be circulated th ...
s during the summer.
The New York Times Building contains a single-stage
absorption chiller
An absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses a heat source (e.g., Solar thermal energy, solar energy, a fossil-fueled flame, waste heat from factories, or district heating systems) to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling proces ...
that is capable of .
The building also has five electric
centrifugal
Centrifugal (a key concept in rotating systems) may refer to:
*Centrifugal casting (industrial), Centrifugal casting (silversmithing), and Spin casting (centrifugal rubber mold casting), forms of centrifigual casting
*Centrifugal clutch
*Centrifug ...
chillers of each, which serve the building's central chilled-water plant. The air from the chillers is delivered from chillers at .
It travels to an
underfloor air distribution system under each of the ''Times'' stories
and to the ceilings of the top 21 stories.
The steam for heating the building itself is purchased from Con Ed rather than being generated on-site, since the architects determined on-site heat generation to be more expensive. The cellar and the podium's roof contain
air handling units with steam coils that take low-pressure steam.
There are over 18,000 lighting fixtures in the offices,
all of which can be dimmed.
The
electrical ballast
An electrical ballast is a device placed in series with a load to limit the amount of electric current, current in an electrical network, electrical circuit.
A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamp ...
in each fixture contains a computer chip, which adjusts the lighting based on natural light levels and on whether the office is occupied.
There are also automatic shades, which change automatically based on the sun's position, sunlight glare, and interior heat gain.
The shades can also be manually overridden.
The movable shades reduce energy consumption by about 13 percent and reduce solar heat gain by 30 percent in the ''Times'' portion of the building.
The upper stories have two data closets and two electric closets each. In addition, the building has emergency generators throughout.
Interior
There are 32 elevators total: 24 for passengers and eight for freight.
The elevators can run as quickly as .
The building's mechanical core contains four banks of elevators with seven shafts each. The lower stories are served by three elevators from each bank, while the upper stories are served by four elevators from each bank.
The elevators contain a
destination dispatch
Destination dispatch is an optimization technique used for multi-elevator installations, in which groups passengers heading to the same destinations use the same elevators, thereby reducing waiting and travel times. Comparatively, the traditional ...
system, wherein passengers request their desired floor before entering the cab. Stairways on the tower's western and eastern sides also connect each of the tower stories.
Base
![Atrium NY Times Building jeh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Atrium_NY_Times_Building_jeh.JPG)
When the New York Times Building was built, the ground floor was designed with a lobby, stores, auditorium, and central garden.
Two restaurant spaces were also placed on Eighth Avenue.
The retail space covers
or of retail and was originally operated by Forest City Ratner.
Under the building's lease agreement, space could not be leased to any fast-food or discount stores; educational centers; or any firm that could attract visitors "without appointment", including medical offices, employment agencies, welfare agencies, or court uses. Furthermore, the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
and most governmental agencies of any kind were banned if they could attract visitors "without appointment".
The ground-floor lobby includes an art installation called ''Moveable Type,'' created by artist
Ben Rubin and statistics professor Mark Hansen.
The work consists of 280 small electronic screens arranged on either of the lobby's two walls, or 560 total. The screens on each wall are arranged in a grid measuring , with forty columns and seven rows.
They display fragments from both the ''Times'' archives and current news stories.
The lobby is supported by exposed intumescent beams and contains oak floors and full-height glass windows.
Also inside the podium is The Times Center, which includes a 378-seat auditorium for events.
The Times Center also includes a meeting space.
The Times Center and lobby overlook a garden at the center of the podium, which is visible from the lobby but closed to the public. The garden is surrounded by a glass wall measuring high and 70 feet across on three sides.
It contains seven paper birch trees measuring tall.
The garden originally had a moss glen,
but this was replaced in 2010 with ferns and grasses.
The birch trees are placed on the northwestern side of the garden, while the mosses were placed on hills in the rest of the space.
A walkway made of
Ipe wood
''Handroanthus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae.David J. Mabberley. 2008. ''Mabberley's Plant-Book'' third edition (2008). Cambridge University Press: UK. It consists of 30 species of trees, known in Latin America by ...
runs around the garden, and doors lead to the garden from the north and south sides.
The walls of the atrium are transparent, resulting in numerous incidents where birds flew into the walls.
''New York Times'' office unit
![New York Times newsroom](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/New_York_Times_newsroom.jpg)
The ''Times'' owned the 2nd to 27th stories
but leased out the top six stories of that space before the building's opening.
Within the ''Times'' section of the building, the structural floor slabs are below the
finished
Finished may refer to:
* ''Finished'' (novel), a 1917 novel by H. Rider Haggard
* ''Finished'' (film), a 1923 British silent romance film
* "Finished" (short story), a science fiction short story by L. Sprague de Camp
See also
*Finishing (disa ...
office floors.
The
girder
A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizing ' ...
s at the building's core, as well as utilities and mechanical systems, are placed beneath the raised floors.
Air is delivered from under the raised floors.
Air enters most of the office spaces through diffusers near each workstation,
and perforated floor tiles are used in the ''Times'' conference rooms.
The ''Times'' offices can also use outdoor air for ventilation,
and the air is generally ventilated through the ceiling.
The perimeter of each ''Times'' story has a ceiling high, but most of the office space has a ceiling high. The ceiling is divided into a grid of tiles measuring , aligned with the vertical
mullion
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...
s of the facade.
The ''Times'' generally arranges its offices in an
open plan
Open plan is the generic term used in architectural and interior design for any floor plan that makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices. The term can also refer to landscaping of h ...
.
The 2nd through 4th stories contain the ''Times''
newsroom
A newsroom is the central place where journalists—reporters, editors, and producers, associate producers, news anchors, news designers, photojournalists, videojournalists, associate editor, residence editor, visual text editor, Desk Head, s ...
, which extends into the podium and overlooks the garden. The podium also accommodated the ''Times'' web-based staff.
Stairs with red banisters connect the newsroom's stories, while a skylight illuminates the workspaces.
Throughout the building, the ''Times'' offices mainly contain cherry wood furniture.
The desks of the ''Times'' offices had gypsum-board accents, which themselves are colored in a scarlet red tone, nicknamed "Renzo Red".
Copy writers' desks are smaller and have laminate desks without partitions.
Two red staircases, one on each side of the building,
connect the ''Times'' offices.
There is also a double-height cafeteria in the ''Times'' section of the building.
To encourage interactions between staffers, the offices were generally not assigned to specific workers, and various furniture was scattered throughout; even the staircases are designed as wide-open spaces.
The ''Times'' space is decorated with about 560 black-and-white prints from the paper's archive. The conference rooms are named after notable figures, supplement by images from the ''Times'' archive. There are about 750 distinct photographs, which illustrate not only the conference rooms but also spaces such as mechanical rooms, electrical closets, and restrooms. The elevator lobbies on each story have different pieces of contemporary furniture, as well as a set of ten video screens that display images from that day's newspaper.
Lessees within the upper portion of the ''Times'' space, such as law firms
Goodwin Procter
Goodwin Procter LLP is a global law firm. It is one of the largest law firms in the world as measured by revenue and consists of more than 1,800 lawyers across offices in Boston, Cambridge, Frankfurt, Munich, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Luxemb ...
and
Seyfarth Shaw
Seyfarth Shaw LLP ( ) is an international AmLaw 100 law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in Chicago in 1945 by Henry Seyfarth, Lee Shaw, and Owen Fairweather, Seyfarth Shaw originally focused on the area of Labour law, labor and ...
, decorated their offices with more ornate finishes to attract clients.
Brookfield office unit
The top 21 stories were designed to be leased to tenants.
The rental office floors generally use chilled-water air handlers and receive both cooling and ventilation from the ceiling.
On the 29th through 50th stories, the core girders are not depressed below the floor slab, but they can support a raised floor of up to . The minimum height of the office space is , though some parts of the ceiling can be up to high.
The upper floors were generally marketed to law firms.
The spaces were, for the most part, also designed by Gensler. Since law firms generally did not require the open-plan layouts that the ''Times'' used, Gensler modified the upper stories' floor-plate dimensions to accommodate more attorneys in the same space. According to the firm's managing principal Robin Klehr Avia, this was done "so you don't have a lot of support areas without enough windows".
Some tenants did not use the 5-foot-wide modules that the ''Times'' used. Gensler designed several tenants' offices with furniture and color schemes similar to those in the ''Times'' offices.
History
Context
Previous ''New York Times'' buildings
''The New York Times'', founded in 1851, was first housed in 113
Nassau Street in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
. It moved to 138 Nassau Street, the site of what is now the
Potter Building
The Potter Building is a building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building occupies a full block along Beekman Street with the addresses 38 Park Row to its west and 145 Nassau Street to its east. It was designed ...
, in 1854. The ''Times'' moved to a neighboring five-story edifice at
41 Park Row
41 Park Row, also 147 Nassau Street and formerly the New York Times Building, is an office building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, across from City Hall and the Civic Center. It occupies a plot abutting Nassau Street ...
in 1858. Partially prompted by the development of the neighboring
New York Tribune Building
The New York Tribune Building (also the Nassau-Tribune Building) was a building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, across from City Hall and the Civic Center. It was at the intersection of Nassau and Spruce Streets, at 154 ...
, the ''Times'' replaced its building in 1889 with
a new 13-story building at the same site, one that remains in use by
Pace University
Pace University is a private university with its main campus in New York City and secondary campuses in Westchester County, New York. It was established in 1906 by the brothers Homer St. Clair Pace and Charles A. Pace as a business school. Pac ...
with some modifications.
In 1905, the paper moved to
One Times Square
One Times Square (also known as 1475 Broadway, the New York Times Building, the New York Times Tower, or simply as the Times Tower) is a 25-story, skyscraper on Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by ...
at 42nd Street and Broadway. The area surrounding the new headquarters was renamed from Longacre Square to
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...
.
The ''Times'' outgrew the slender Times Tower within a decade and, in 1913, moved into the Times Annex at
229 West 43rd Street
229 West 43rd Street (formerly The New York Times Building, The New York Times Annex, and the Times Square Building) is an 18-story office building in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1913 and expanded in ...
.
By 1999, the ''Times'' operated at six locations in Manhattan and had a printing plant in
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
.
Site redevelopment
The Urban Development Corporation (UDC), an agency of the New York state government, had proposed redeveloping the area around a portion of West
42nd Street in 1981. Among the UDC's plans was a garment merchandise mart on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, opposite Port Authority Bus Terminal.
The project was to be completed by the Times Square Redevelopment Corporation, comprising members of the New York state and city governments.
David Morse and Richard Reinis were selected in April 1982 to develop the mart,
but they were removed from the project that November due to funding issues.
Subsequently, the state and city disputed over the replacement development team, leading the city to withdraw from the partnership in August 1983.
The state and city reached a compromise on the development team that October, wherein the mart would be developed by
Tishman Speyer
Tishman Speyer Properties is an American company that invests in real estate.
History
The firm was founded in 1978 by Robert Tishman and Jerry Speyer.
In March 1988, the company announced its first project in Europe, the construction of a 70-s ...
, operated by
Trammell Crow
Fred Trammell Crow (June 10, 1914 – January 14, 2009) was an American real estate developer from Dallas, Texas. He is credited with the creation of several major real estate projects, including the Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center in Atlan ...
, and funded by
Equitable Life Assurance.
Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architecture firm that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors. KPF is one of the largest architecture firms in ...
designed a 20-story structure with for apparel and computer showrooms. The building would have a limestone and granite facade, a wide arch with a clock spanning 41st Street, arched entrances on Eighth Avenue, and a set of pavilions with ten pyramids on the roof.
The proposal was complicated by the fact that developer
Paul Milstein
Paul Milstein (May 12, 1922 – August 9, 2010) was an American real estate developer and philanthropist.
Early life and education
Milstein was born to a Jewish family[Chemical Bank
Chemical Bank was a bank with headquarters in New York City from 1824 until 1996. At the end of 1995, Chemical was the third-largest bank in the U.S., with about $182.9 billion in assets and more than 39,000 employees around the world.
Beginning ...]
had considered occupying office space at the mart before withdrawing in 1989. The mart plan was never completed because of a weakened market.
Development
By mid-1999, state and city officials were planning a
request for proposals for the southern half of the merchandise mart site. The ''Times'' parent company,
the New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is an American mass media company that publishes ''The New York Times''. Its headquarters are in Manhattan, New York City.
History
The company was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones in New York City. T ...
, proposed a headquarters tower, citing its need to enlarge its operations.
If this was not possible, the company would keep its headquarters at 43rd Street but move some jobs to New Jersey.
In October 1999, the ''Times'' reported that its parent company was negotiating for the site.
Though the site was highly visible due to the low stature of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the west, it was also at the extreme corner of both the traditional Times Square area to the north and the
Garment District to the south. Nevertheless, as architect
Robert A. M. Stern
Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern (born May 23, 1939), is a New York City–based architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, also known as ...
wrote, the New York Times Company likely perceived the site's fringe location as a beneficial attribute.
The new site was not commonly considered to be part of Times Square, leading
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''.
Biography
Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...
of ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' to say that the plan "has implications that go beyond the sentimental".
Selection of developer and architect
![New York Times Building - Bottom Portion (48193462432)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/New_York_Times_Building_-_Bottom_Portion_%2848193462432%29.jpg)
The ''Times'' selected
Forest City Ratner Companies as the developer for its Eighth Avenue tower in February 2000. The following month, the ''Times'' began negotiating with the city and state.
The ''Times'' wanted to pay $75 million and a two-thirds deduction in real estate taxes, but the state wanted $125 million for the site and the city wanted the ''Times'' to pay full taxes.
Some commentators wrote about how the ''Times'' had opposed corporate tax relief despite seeking such relief for itself.
The parties signed a nonbinding agreement in June 2000, wherein the ''Times'' agreed to pay $100 million. The ''Times'' was to occupy half of the planned tower, a single unit covering the second through 28th floors. The remainder of the space would be operated by Forest City and leased to office tenants.
At the time, other media headquarters were being developed nearby, such as the
Hearst Tower on
57th Street and the
Condé Nast
Condé Nast () is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.
The company's media ...
Building at
4 Times Square
4 Times Square (also known as 151 West 42nd Street or One Five One; formerly the Condé Nast Building) is a 52-story skyscraper at Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Located at 1472 Broadway, between 42nd and ...
.
Robert A. M. Stern, his colleague Paul Whalen, and Naresh Kapadia of the 42nd Street Development Project created a set of design guidelines in advance of an
architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a type of design competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel o ...
for the building. They also created a model conforming to ideals set by the chairman of the
New York City Planning Commission
The Department of City Planning (DCP) is the department of the government of New York City responsible for setting the framework of city's physical and socioeconomic planning. The department is responsible for land use and environmental review, p ...
.
The design guidelines were printed in a 48-page program with a statement by ''Times'' architecture critic
Herbert Muschamp
Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic.
Early years
Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...
.
Times Company vice chairman
Michael Golden said of the design: "We need to contribute to the skyline of New York. We don't want to have people say, 'Gee, The New York Times built a four-story brick warehouse in Manhattan.'"
In September 2000, four architects submitted bids for the new tower's design: Renzo Piano,
Norman Foster
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
,
César Pelli
César Pelli (October 12, 1926 – July 19, 2019) was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Two of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur a ...
, and the partnership of
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.
His works are considered ...
and
David Childs
David Magie Childs (born April 1, 1941) is an American architect and chairman emeritus of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. He is the architect of the new One World Trade Center in New York City.
Early life and education
Chi ...
.
Piano called for a rectangular tower rising from a large podium; Foster proposed a right triangle tapering toward the top; Pelli outlined a glass tower with several
chamfer
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces.
Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...
s; and the Gehry/Childs partnership planned a structure with billowing sheets of glass on the facade.
The Gehry/Childs partnership was widely speculated in the media to be the front-runner,
but Gehry was worried that the integrity of his design would be compromised in later revisions.
As a result, he and Childs withdrew their plan from consideration.
Ultimately, the ''Times'' selected Piano's proposal in October 2000,
and it selected Gensler as the interior architect in February 2001.
Piano's plan called for a structure with a ceramic screen rising to and a mast rising to .
Fox & Fowle was selected as Piano's co-architect, focusing on smaller design details and costs.
Site acquisition
![New York Times Tower from NYTD](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/New_York_Times_Tower_from_NYTD.jpg)
The
Empire State Development Corporation
Empire State Development (ESD) is the umbrella organization for New York's two principal economic development public-benefit corporations, the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the New York Job Development Authority (JDA). T ...
(ESDC) had, since the late 1990s, tried to condemn ten lots on the site through
eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
, but some existing landlords had sued to stop the condemnation. A state court rejected the landlords' claim and, in February 2001, the
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...
denied an appeal.
The ''Times'' and Forest City Ratner negotiated terms of the project, in which the ''Times'' would receive $26.1 million in tax breaks. The company would lease the site from the state for $85.6 million over 99 years, considerably below market value. However, its
payment in lieu of taxes A payment in lieu of taxes (usually abbreviated as PILOT, or sometimes as PILT) is a payment made to compensate a government for some or all of the property tax revenue lost due to tax exempt ownership or use of real property.
Canada
The federal g ...
(PILOT) would be equivalent to the site's full property tax assessments.
In September 2001, the ESDC scheduled a public hearing for the project. Following the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, which occurred in the meantime, the ''Times'' reaffirmed its commitment to a new headquarters.
At the hearing, many large landlords expressed their support for the new ''Times'' headquarters, citing the loss of office space that had been caused by the
collapse of the World Trade Center
The collapse of the World Trade Center occurred during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers were struck by two hijacked commercial airliners. One World Trade Center (WTC 1, or the North Tower) was hit at 8:46 ...
during the attacks. The existing property owners opposed the condemnation, saying that the block was no longer legally a "
blighted" area.
That December, the ESDC was authorized to condemn the properties on the site. If the acquisition cost exceeded $85.6 million, the additional cost would be covered by
taxpayer
A taxpayer is a person or organization (such as a company) subject to pay a tax. Modern taxpayers may have an Taxpayer Identification Number, identification number, a reference number issued by a government to Citizenship, citizens or Company, f ...
funds.
By law, the ESDC first had to offer to buy the land from the owners, using the condemnation process only as a last resort.
The ''Times'' publicly announced plans for the building on December 13, 2001.
Piano had originally intended to include an open piazza at the base, but the revised plans called for a tower rising directly from Eighth Avenue, with the ''Times'' newsroom surrounding a garden. The main roof would have its own garden and antenna mast.
The tower retained its planned glass curtain wall, but the structural system was strengthened.
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''.
Biography
Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...
wrote that the building, the largest New York City development proposed since the September 11 attacks, "would have drawn plenty of attention even if it had been just another corporate box".
Gary Barnett
Gary Lee Barnett (born May 23, 1946) is a former American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Fort Lewis College (1982–1983), Northwestern University (1992–1998), and the University of Colorado at Boulder (1999–2005), ...
of
Intell Development, one of the landowners on the site, filed a lawsuit that December, alleging that the ''Times'' had engaged in "fraud, bad faith, and collusion against the taxpayers of the city" by taking tax breaks. Barnett was joined by five other owners who wanted to build their own structure on the land. During the lawsuit, ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'' reported that taxpayer funds would need to cover an additional $79 million of the ''Times'' site's cost.
A New York state judge ruled against Barnett and his co-plaintiffs in August 2002. Over the following year, the state evicted some 55 businesses on the site.
The ''Times'' itself reported that the state had only provided modest compensation to displaced property owners. The
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
declined to hear a challenge brought by the landowners in February 2003. That September, the state had assembled the site and the developers started razing existing buildings. Forest City and
ING Real Estate
The ING Group ( nl, ING Groep) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale bankin ...
held a 42 percent leasehold stake while the New York Times Company owned the remaining 58 percent.
Funding
In mid-2003, Forest City announced it would request $400 million in tax-free Liberty bonds, allocated for September 11 recovery efforts, to finance the building's construction. Forest City claimed it could not finance its portion of the tower. This request, along with a similar one for the
Bank of America Tower three blocks northeast, received public criticism. By October 2003, the construction of the headquarters had been delayed by a year. Forest City had not been able to secure an anchor tenant for its portion of the building, and the Liberty-bond negotiations between Forest City and the state and city governments had stalled.
By that time, Forest City had reduced its request to $150 million.
ESDC head
Charles A. Gargano
Charles A. Gargano (born October 28, 1934, in Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, Avellino, Italy) is an Italian born American businessman, government official and the former U.S. Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. He was the chairman of the Empire State De ...
reportedly held an unfavorable view of Forest City's application for bonds. If financing could not be obtained before construction started in 2004, the project would have to be canceled.
After failing to secure Liberty bonds, the developers applied to GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation for financing.
GMAC provided $320 million in construction funding for the project in July 2004.
''Times'' officials predicted that work would start in the middle of that year.
That November, the ''Times'' sold its old 229 West 43rd Street building to
Tishman Speyer
Tishman Speyer Properties is an American company that invests in real estate.
History
The firm was founded in 1978 by Robert Tishman and Jerry Speyer.
In March 1988, the company announced its first project in Europe, the construction of a 70-s ...
for $175 million, though the paper planned to remain at that building for the time being. This prompted criticism from some of the site's former landowners, and ''The Village Voice'' said the proceeds from the sale "wiped out the need for much, if not all, of the taxpayer money the ''Times'' asked for".
According to the ''Voice'', the ''Times'' had predicted that its 43rd Street building would have sold for $45 million in 1999.
Construction
![NYTimes Building under construction](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/NYTimes_Building_under_construction.jpg)
Work began on the new ''Times'' building in late 2004,
after financing had been secured.
Civetta Cousins Joint Venture was hired as the foundation contractor,
and work started in August
or September 2004.
Forest City's executive vice president MaryAnne Gilmartin said the development would conclude a revitalization of the western extremities of Midtown Manhattan.
The first steel was erected starting in April 2005,
and the foundation was finished that July.
Work was slightly delayed during the middle of that year due to a
labor strike
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the I ...
among ironworkers. The steelwork had reached a height of 400 feet by October 2005. By then, ten of the eleven former landowners were requesting that the city and state governments give them additional compensation, as they alleged their land had been seized at well below market value. The eleventh landowner had been satisfied with a settlement.
A groundbreaking ceremony took place in late 2005.
The building still had several hundred thousand square feet of vacant office space, in part due to the higher rent in Midtown compared to Lower Manhattan. Real-estate industry executives also expressed uncertainty that architectural renderings of the ceramic curtain wall, and the site's location near the Port Authority Bus Terminal, would be a drawback for tenants.
To advertise the upper stories, Ratner hired photographer
Annie Leibovitz
Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( ; born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid photo of Jo ...
to photograph the tower's construction. During construction, in March 2006, a rod fell from the tower and dented the roof of a passing car, slightly injuring its occupants. The steel superstructure was
topped out
In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...
during July 2006.
The mast was installed later that year.
By that October, the facade had been installed to the 42nd floor and interior finishes were being placed on lower stories.
Usage
Opening and late 2000s
The first office tenant at the New York Times Building was law firm
Seyfarth Shaw
Seyfarth Shaw LLP ( ) is an international AmLaw 100 law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in Chicago in 1945 by Henry Seyfarth, Lee Shaw, and Owen Fairweather, Seyfarth Shaw originally focused on the area of Labour law, labor and ...
, which leased the 31st to 33rd stories in May 2006.
Law firm
Covington & Burling
Covington & Burling LLP is an American multinational law firm. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the firm advises clients on transactional, litigation, regulatory, and public policy matters. In 2021, Vault.com ranked Covington & Burling as th ...
then leased the 39th to 43rd stories, while law firm
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP is a Canadian-based law firm founded in 1862. Osler is considered one of the Seven Sisters (law firms), a historical collection of seven law firms with offices in Toronto, Ontario.
History
The firm was founded in ...
signed for the 36th and 37th stories.
Investment firm
Legg Mason
Legg Mason was an American investment management and asset management firm headquartered in Baltimore, founded in 1899 and acquired by Franklin Templeton Investments as of July 2020. As of December 31, 2019, the company had $730.8 billion in asse ...
signed a lease in August 2006 for the 45th to 50th stories, committing to develop the roof garden and a conference center on the 52nd story.
Simultaneously, Forest City also announced its intention to buy ING's stake in the ground-story retail and upper-story office space.
By late 2006, there was strong demand for office space in the building, particularly among law firms,
and the ''Times'' had hired
CBRE Group
CBRE Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate services and investment firm. The abbreviation CBRE stands for Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. It is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 reven ...
to market the 23rd to 27th stories.
Goodwin Procter
Goodwin Procter LLP is a global law firm. It is one of the largest law firms in the world as measured by revenue and consists of more than 1,800 lawyers across offices in Boston, Cambridge, Frankfurt, Munich, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Luxemb ...
leased the 23rd through 27th, 29th, and 30th stories in March 2007.
The 38th floor was taken that April by Korean architecture firm
Samoo Architects & Engineers and developer JP Properties,
while Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services took the 34th floor.
The first ''New York Times'' employees started moving into the building by May 2007. The following month, on June 11, the ''Times'' shifted its publishing operations from 43rd Street to its new Eighth Avenue headquarters.
''Times'' reporter
David W. Dunlap
David W. Dunlap (born 1952) is an American journalist who worked as a reporter for ''The New York Times''. He wrote a regular column, Building Blocks, that looked at the New York metropolitan area through its architecture, infrastructure, spaces, a ...
wrote that Piano had described the new building as having "lightness, transparency and immateriality", which intentionally did not fit the traditional image of the "old-fashioned newspaper".
The Eighth Avenue building officially opened on November 19, 2007.
In total, the structure was projected to cost over $1 billion.
In two separate incidents in December 2007 and January 2008, several window panes were cracked by wind gusts.
The Japanese company
Muji
(), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...
opened a store at the base during May 2008. The four other retail spaces were leased by grocery store
Dean & DeLuca, Japanese restaurant Inakaya,
Italian restaurant Montenapo by Bice, and a roadside-themed cafe.
Also in 2008, the 44th story was occupied by solar energy company
First Solar
First Solar, Inc. is an American manufacturer of solar panels, and a provider of utility-scale PV power plants and supporting services that include finance, construction, maintenance and end-of-life panel recycling. First Solar uses rigid thi ...
and the
Flemish Government
The Flemish Government ( nl, Vlaamse regering ) is the executive branch of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region of Belgium. It consists of a government cabinet, headed by the Minister-President and accountable to the Flemish Parliament, a ...
.
After the tower was scaled several times in mid-2008, workers removed some of the facade's ceramic rods and added glass panels to deter climbing.
Piano supported the modifications,
but he said that climbing was not even a consideration during the planning process, even though ''Times'' executives had focused extensively on reducing the tower's vulnerability to terrorism.
By the end of that year, the New York Times Company was facing financial shortfalls and sought to mortgage its building to refinance debt.
By January 2009, the ''Times'' was negotiating to sell the nineteen stories that it occupied, the 2nd through 21st stories, to
W. P. Carey
W. P. Carey Inc. is a real estate investment trust that invests in properties leased to single tenants via NNN leases. The company is organized in Maryland, with its primary office in New York City.
As of December 31, 2019, the company owned 1 ...
for $225 million.
In exchange, the ''Times'' would lease back its floors for $24 million a year for 10 years. The leaseback was finalized in March 2009.
2010s to present
![New York Times Building 0210](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/New_York_Times_Building_0210.JPG)
Part of the 44th story was sublet in 2010 to Kepos Capital,
which occupied the space for eight years. By late 2013, the ''Times'' wished to lease out the 21st story, the only part of the building that it still owned. Technology company Bounce Exchange leased the 21st story in early 2015 from the ''Times'', which had previously housed its sales and marketing department there''.''
In December 2016, the ''Times'' announced it was subletting at least eight floors, totaling , to save the costs of occupying that space. Gensler was hired to reorganize the space, including removing some corner offices that belonged to high-ranking executives such as the CEO and the publisher. Over half of the sublet space, covering , was sublet a little more than a year later to financial firm
Liquidnet
Liquidnet is a global institutional investment network that connects asset managers with liquidity. Liquidnet trades in 46 equity markets for over 1000 institutional investment firms who collectively manage US$33 trillion in equity and fixed incom ...
. During late 2018, British outsourcing firm Williams Lea Tag signed a 10-year lease for of space on the 10th story. Covington & Burling also expanded to the 44th story that year.
The ''Times'' announced in February 2018 that it would repurchase the building's leasehold from W. P. Carey. Brookfield Properties, which had acquired Forest City Ratner, refinanced the building's first floor and the 28th- through 50th-story condominiums in late 2018 for $635 million. The loan was provided by
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
,
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...
,
Barclays Capital
Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services.
Barclays traces ...
, and
Citi
Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant #Citicorp, Citicorp and financial ...
; it consisted of a $515 million
commercial mortgage-backed security
Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are a type of mortgage-backed security backed by commercial and multifamily mortgages rather than residential real estate. CMBS tend to be more complex and volatile than residential mortgage-backed ...
and a $120 million junior note.
Some $115 million in
mezzanine debt
In finance, mezzanine capital is any subordinated debt or preferred equity instrument that represents a claim on a company's assets which is senior only to that of the common shares. Mezzanine financings can be structured either as debt (typicall ...
was also provided.
The ''Times'' subsequently exercised its option on the leasehold in late 2019 for $245 million,.
Critical reception
![The New York Times Building at sunset, 2021-09-30](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/The_New_York_Times_Building_at_sunset%2C_2021-09-30.jpg)
When Piano was selected for the Times Building, architectural critic
Martin Filler
Martin Myles Filler (born September 17, 1948) is an American architecture critic. He is best known for his long essays on modern architecture that have appeared in ''The New York Review of Books'' since 1985, and which served as the basis for his ...
called the selection "very disappointing", saying that "a lot of
iano'scommercial work is really terrible".
Herbert Muschamp
Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic.
Early years
Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...
, architecture critic for the ''Times'', wrote that Piano was the "world's greatest living practitioner of what I call 'normative' architecture", though he criticized the base as having "too little contrast with the city outside".
After the September 11 attacks, Muschamp wrote, ''"''There may be no more constructive way to fill the architectural void
f the World Trade Center
F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...
than to revisit the history of progressive architecture in this town", including the planned Times Building and
Hearst Tower. ''Times'' design writer
Steven Heller lamented the move, saying: "The Piano building will be a showpiece, not a home."
''Architecture'' magazine wrote in early 2002 that, with its paucity of bright signage that characterized other Times Square buildings, "The architect has chosen to speak to the ''Times'', not to Times Square."
Just before the start of construction,
Justin Davidson
Justin Davidson (born in Rome, Italy, in 1966) is a classical music and architecture critic.
In 1983, he graduated from the American Overseas School of Rome, where his mother was an English teacher. Davidson began his journalism career as a loc ...
of ''Newsday'' wrote that "lightness is both a metaphoric and an architectural goal" in the building's design.
In 2006, Paul Goldberger wrote for ''The New Yorker'' that the Times Building "comes off as dainty, even flimsy, as if inside this huge tower a little building were struggling to get out", in contrast with Piano's then-recent
Morgan Library & Museum
The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...
expansion. James Gardner of the ''New York Sun'' said that he did not believe the Times Building to be "a bad building" but that the ceramic bars "becomes the sort of pure ornamentalism that betrays so much contemporary architecture that overzealously aspires to appear purely functional". When the building was completed, ''Times'' architecture critic
Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff (russian: Николай Владимирович Урусов; born October 3, 1962) is a writer and educator who was an architecture critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The New York Times''.
Biography
Born in Cambridg ...
wrote: "Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper's highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both."
Suzanne Stephens of ''Architectural Record'' wrote that the building "seems strangely bland in New York’s architecturally variegated context". Despite the architectural criticism, the building received the
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...
' 2009 Honor Award.
See also
*
List of tallest buildings in New York City
New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is home to over 7,000 completed high-rise buildings of at least , of which at least 95 are taller than . The tallest building in New York is One World Trade Center, which rises ...
*
List of tallest buildings in the United States
The world's first skyscraper was built in Chicago in 1885. Since then, the United States has been home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers. New York City, specifically the borough of Manhattan, notably has the tallest skyline in the cou ...
*
List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
This is a list of tallest freestanding structures in the world past and present. To be freestanding a structure must not be supported by guy wires, the sea or other types of support. It therefore does not include guyed masts, partially guyed tow ...
*
List of tallest freestanding steel structures
This is a list of tallest freestanding steel structures in the world past and present. To be a freestanding steel structure it must not be supported by guy wires, the list therefore does not include guyed masts and the main vertical and lateral str ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:New York Times Building, The
2007 establishments in New York City
Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
Forest City Realty Trust
Midtown Manhattan
Modernist architecture in New York City
The New York Times
Newspaper buildings
Newspaper headquarters in the United States
Office buildings completed in 2007
Renzo Piano buildings
Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan