Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan is well known for its zoning-code-driven stepped facades, including many notable art deco towers from the 1930s. Midcentury trends into curtain wall construction and boxy massings in the international style eventually transitioned to more varied contemporary design approaches. The broader vicinity also features historic residential and office buildings and notable parks dotted across the island.

30 Rockefeller Plaza
View north from the Top of the Rock.
Art Deco spandrels on top of Rockefeller Center.
View east from the Top of the Rock. Note 270 Park Ave under construction and soon to eclipse the height of its closest skyline neighbors.
Towers in Midtown Manhattan and the new Hudson Yards development.
View south from the Top of the Rock to the Empire State Building and Lower Manhattan.
Billionaire’s Row and central park from the Top of the Rock.
The midrise buildings of Rockefeller Center all feature similar punched window facades, contrasting with the vertical patterning of the towers.
30 Rockefeller Plaza with the 2022 Christmas Tree.
Rockefeller Plaza
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Gothic door in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
45 Rockefeller Plaza
Midtown towers with characteristic zoning-required setbacks.
Philip Johnson’s postmodern 550 Madison Avenue tower.
The new glass canopy and garden behind 550 Madison Avenue.
Rear lobby arched opening at 550 Madison Avenue.
432 Park Avenue from Pulitzer Plaza.
432 Park Avenue features a single vertically-repeated design expression for its full height.
The lower floors of 432 Park Avenue, where the tower meets the ground plane on E 56th St.
The landmark Seagram Building.
The Seagram Building features a significant setback from Park Avenue, with its fountains filled here with a forest of Christmas trees.
Façade detailing of the Seagram Building.
View down Park Avenue from the Seagram Building.
Lever House
270 Park Avenue, under construction on the site of the former Union Carbide building.
Tower columns transfer to heroically-sloped exterior stilts and interior V-bents to avoid conflicting with train tunnels entering Grand Central Terminal below 270 Park Avenue.
Diagonal steel columns will be expressed in the completed façade of 270 Park Avenue.
Panelized stainless steel façade on the Socony-Mobil Building.
Tudor City
The United Nations Secretariat Building
Tudor City
Tudor City Greens
Tudor City Greens
The United Nations Secretariat Building from Tudor City Bridge.
Tudor City
The Socony-Mobil Building and the Chrysler Building.
Grand Central Terminal
The Park Avenue Viaduct leading up to Grand Central Terminal.
The New York Public Library’s flagship building.
Marble staircase in the New York Public Library.
New York Public Library main entry lobby.
Rotunda in the New York Public Library.
Stairwell in the New York Public Library.
Bryant Park and surrounding buildings.
The Empire State Building.
Podium of the Empire State Building.
Cascading buildings along Madison Square Park.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Clock Tower and One Madison from Madison Square Park.
The Flatiron Building.
A crane lifts a steel beam to the under-re-construction One Madison project attached to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Clock Tower.
The Decker Building
The Decker Building
A contemporary vertical addition to an older building in the meatpacking district.
Little Island, the new pier 55 park on the Hudson River.
Stepped “pots” create an arched entry to Little Island.
Little Island is formed by precast concrete “pots” supported on concrete piers.
Stairs and accessible pathways traverse the varied and heavily landscaped terrain of Little Island.
View across Little Island to its central plaza.
The amphitheater at Little Island looks out to the Hudson River and New Jersey.
Pathways on Little Island.
Little Island slopes up in its corners, framing a valley view to lower Manhattan.

One Reply to “Midtown Manhattan”

  1. I loved your garden tour complete with produce that you utilized! You are so in touch with nature for which I share your enthusiasm! I also totally enjoyed your tour of New York. I have been there numerous times but missed everything that you captured! I guess I was most wowed by the “billionaire row!” I had no idea those slender towers exited. Amazing!

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