Ya, ya. We all know it has to sway, blah, blah, blah. That’s not the point. Do you want to live in a swaying building?
Newser-
One skyscraper stands out from the rest in the Manhattan skyline. It’s not the tallest, but it is the skinniest—the world’s skinniest, in fact. The recently completed 84-story residential Steinway Tower, designed by New York architecture firm SHoP Architects, has the title of “most slender skyscraper in the world” thanks to its logic-defying ratio of width to height: 23 1/2-to-1, the AP reports. “Any time it’s 1-to-10 or more that’s considered a slender building; 1-to-15 or more is considered exotic and really difficult to do,” says SHoP Architects founding principal Gregg Pasquarelli. “The most slender buildings in the world are mostly in Hong Kong, and they’re around 17- or 18-to-1.”
The 60 apartments in the tower range in cost from $18 million to $66 million per unit, and offer 360-degree views of the city. It’s located just south of Central Park, along a stretch of Manhattan’s 57th Street known as “Billionaires Row.” At 1,428 feet the building is the second-tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, second to the nearby Central Park Tower at 1,550 feet. The world’s tallest tower is Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which stands at 2,717 feet. Steinway Tower is so skinny at the top that whenever the wind ramps up, the luxury homes on the upper floors sway around by a few feet.
“Every skyscraper has to move,” Pasquarelli says. “If it’s too stiff, it’s actually more dangerous—it has to have flexibility in it.” To prevent the tower from swaying too far, the architects created a counterbalance with tuned steel plates.
Hell yeat… Just like flying a plane.
That might make some people throw up.
Do the windows open?
Don’t think I want to live there, reminds me too much of a politician.
Slimpire State Building…
No
I’m seriously considering moving from my 2 story (plus basement) to a single level, ranch style. I’d be claustrophobic in a 1400 foot tower, whether it swayed or not. On top of that I’m a little short of the $66 million that it takes for the top floor view.
oh HELL no! if I wanted the building I lived in to sway, I’d move to Kali
if the earthquakes don’t shake ya the mudslides & fires will get a ‘sway’ out of your britches
I know you’d get the luxury of a different view all day long, but would you have to nail the furniture down? wouldn’t you need cupboards & cabinets built like boat cupboards?
… & an indoor pool would be out of the question
(unless you actually enjoy reliving the sinking of the Lusitania over & over)
There is a limitless supply of limousine liberals in Manhattan that place an unhealthy emphasis on status within their community. Slap a solar panel on the roof, spread a rumor that Madonna (is she still alive?) lives in the penthouse and the place will sell out in 24 hours.
Can you fly there?
Building your house on rock is good.
On sand is bad.
In the air is…
Some place near the top would make a heckuva sniper’s nest.
Hmm. Are there ballistic computer apps that can handle line-of-sight angles of 89°?
I bet the management doesn’t allow water beds.
40 or so years ago, the firm I worked for designed a 75 ft tower for the Coast Guard. I don’t remember the exact design specs USCG provided, but it was something like 18” deflection in a 125
Mph wind. It complied, but the first big storm, the coasties decided they didn’t want to be up there in the wind. Government shortened the tower to about 1/2 its original height.
By the time you fit the elevator and the code-mandated separation between the two stairways, you can get about one 500 sq ft apartment on each floor.
OK, to answer @BFH’s actual question here, I don’t think the swaying would bother me much, but I’d sorta like it if the architect lived in the building, too.
But I’d never find out because there’s no way I’d ever live in any kind of a multi-story apartment ever again. I’d rather live in a tent out with the palmettos, pythons, panthers, and purple ibises.
We’ll see how it does in one of New York’s rare 5.0-6.0 earthquakes on solid bedrock. I’m thinking 10-20′ at the top. It might just throw your ass through the plate glass.
My place starts swaying after the fourth drink. Here’s to you!
I’ll stick with my single story place in the relative calm of SC.
FJB
How do carry all the groceries in in one trip?
Trick Question Right BFH?
New York has some of the most restrictive Gun Laws in the US and i would bet everyone here has something that goes Boom.
Hell, even I do.
Charles Whitman would have loved it.
I saw it under construction in NYC in October 2019. There was a crane on top of it. I said to myself: I would not want to be that crane operator for a million bucks.
Anyway, a tall skinny building like that makes a good target for bad men. A group of terrorists could probably aim a bunch of missiles at the middle of the structure to cut it in half, jacknifing it. Everybody dead. Dumb New Yorkers. Dumb City.
Video of the article information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnB3rDUPCTY
Video of one of the units:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkhG2yLpieE
Oh, and I wouldn’t live in New York anywhere, period!
@DrHambone
Charles Whitman was one of the first mass murderers that I became aware of. Around the same time a deranged man killed a bunch of Filipino nurses somewhere back east. There have been so many since I have forgotten most of them. These cases got multi-page spreads in Life magazine, as I recall.
Before the mid 1960’s there was a WWII vet named Unruh who shot to death about 14 people in New Jersey. There are probably more mass killers from earlier decades.
@Tim Buktu
My family and I were actually in Austin, Texas on the day of the tower shooting. We left to return home that morning after a visiting my aunt and uncle. I was twelve.