Even so, New York City is still home to more 100m+ buildings than any other city on Earth. Flagship skyscrapers have grown taller than we ever could’ve imagined, and relentless development has completely transformed places like Dubai and Shenzhen.
The world has changed a lot since the ribbon was cut in front of the Empire State Building. For more than a decade, no new 150m+ towers were added to the city’s skyline. Manhattan was a magnet for growth, and its extreme population density left only one direction to grow: skyward.Ī number of iconic landmarks were constructed in this era, including the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.Īs the chart above clearly illustrates, the onset of the Great Depression had a pronounced cooling effect on construction in New York City. Not only was the economy booming, but the United States had recently became one of the first countries in the world to have a majority-urban population. The roaring ’20s ushered in a new age of skyscrapers in New York City that only picked up steam heading into the 1930s. NYC was slower than its rival, Chicago, in adopting skeleton-frame construction techniques, but once that door was open, height records were eclipsed every few years. In 1908, the ante was upped further after the completion of the 47-storey headquarters of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and the 50-storey Metropolitan Life Tower. One of the more ambitious projects in this wave of development was the New York World Building (1890), which held the title as the tallest skyscraper in the world. The city’s first cluster of tall buildings appeared around City Hall, as newspapers competed to see who could build the most grand headquarters. It wasn’t until the late-1800s when technology and economic might converged to produce the first modern towers.
The Early History of Skyscrapersįor decades, the ornate spire of Trinity Church towered over Lower Manhattan. Today’s infographic comes to us from Liberty Cruise NYC and it charts this evolution over the last century, while highlighting just how dramatically the cityscape is set to change by 2020. Smoke stacks and cathedral spires were gradually eclipsed by the stately office towers of “ Newspaper Row”, and iconic skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building soon shared the skyline with monolithic towers in the international style. Over New York City’s storied history, the skyline has evolved constantly. View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here. A Century of New York City’s Evolving Skyline
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