The South Ferry Plaza, also called A Lighthouse At The Tip Of The Island,
was a
supertall
A supertall building is an occupied "supertall" structure higher than and beneath . A form of skyscraper, it falls midway between a common minimum definition of "skyscraper" (a building taller ) and a " megatall" building (taller than ).
Diff ...
skyscraper proposed in 1987
to rise right next to the
East River
The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...
on
Manhattan Island in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
The building would have sat on top of the
South Ferry terminal and tower above street level, with 60 stories of office space.
It was designed by architect
Fox & Fowle Architects and Leslie E. Robertson Associates.
The architects designed the building for office use and the skyscraper incorporated recycled marble and
steel with
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...
in its structure. The
architectural plan
In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure.
Dimensio ...
had a glass dome that was supposed to be lit at night, which also contained an
observation deck
An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclos ...
and three restaurants located inside the
dome.
In addition, the project called for the renovation of the South Ferry Terminal, including the train station so it can accommodate 100,000 people. The project would have doubled the size of Battery Park if it had proceeded, since the building included a plaza that was planned to tie in with
Battery Park
The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, is a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City facing New York Harbor. It is bounded by Battery Place on the north, State Street on the east, New York Harbor to ...
via a new promenade at the tip of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
The project was canceled in 1991 because of a lack of funding.
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 ...
References
Unbuilt buildings and structures in New York City
Skyscrapers in Manhattan
South Ferry (Manhattan)
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