One of the most popular views of New York’s iconic skyline can be enjoyed from the top of the Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. Look south, and you are treated to a spectacular panorama of skyscrapers, the distinctive silhouette of the Empire State Building taking center stage and SOM’s One World Trade Center visible in the distance. Look north, and you can treasure a bird’s-eye view of Central Park, as yet unhindered by supertall residential towers such as Rafael Viñoly’s pencil-thin 432 Park Avenue to the northeast. All that is about to change, though, as this single, compelling rendering testifies.
A future view from the “Top of the Rock” observation deck; via YIMBY
Created by the New York architectural experts at YIMBY, the image shows the prospective view from the Rockefeller Center’s open-air observation deck circa 2018 — the expected date of completion for Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s glittering Nordstrom Tower and Jean Nouvel’s sinuous MoMA Tower, rising above New York’s preeminent museum for contemporary art and design. The image also includes SHoP’s skinny skyscraper at 111 West 57th Street, which broke ground in 2014 and is set to top out next year.
The new skyscrapers dwarf the only recent high-rise condominium within the frame that is already complete: Christian de Portzamparc’s One57 is over 1,000 feet tall, and its diminished presence adjacent to the upcoming towers is representative of a remarkable race toward the sky in this part of the city.
Visualization showing new developments in red; via The Architect’s Newspaper
Speculation about the final height of the Nordstrom Tower has been rumbling on for months, but whether or not the building surpasses One World Trade Center as the Western Hemisphere’s tallest building is incidental. This image constitutes one of the most clear visions of the future for Midtown Manhattan and will undoubtedly provoke as much debate about the socioeconomic evolution of New York City as it will about the quality of the architecture on show.
For more images of and insight into contemporary residential projects across every borough of New York City, explore this section of the Architizer database.
