Imagine paying anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 per square FOOT for your living space? I most certainly can’t but reflecting on this exhibition highlights the kind of wealth necessary to afford a living space in Manhattan. “A New Type of Skyscraper” illustrates the new “slender” buildings being built, and their ultimate goal to maximize profit. While theoretically there is nothing wrong with the direction that skyscraper development in NYC is taking, I find it absurd.
The basic logic behind “sky high” prices for real estate in Manhattan goes as follows: as long as there is demand for luxury real estate, there will be a supply of luxury real estate. I don’t question that there are people in the world earning more money than I could ever imagine and that those are the people purchasing $10,000 per square foot of some penthouse overlooking Central Park. I understand why they are worth so much, but I don’t see the point in spending so much.
The move toward more slender buildings, no matter how “intimate” developers are trying to make them, are still in essence, smaller living spaces. 111 West 57th St. has a width to height ratio of 1:23. Wonderful, residents will have fantastic views of the city, but no matter how intimate these spaces are, I personally don’t think they’re worth millions of dollars. To put this into perspective, three square feet can fund an entire program of SAT and college preparation of 55 first generation low income, college bound students. But instead people are purchasing three square feet of space that you can do nothing but stand in.
Trying to maximize profit in an industry that can instantaneously make you rich, is simply greedy. What difference does $10 or $50 million make when you’re a millionaire? Maybe I don’t know because the idea is inconceivable, but the difference can’t be significantly greater. According to an architect in the section called “The logic of luxury” a “compact core is desirable to the developer because the core represents costs, while all other floor area that the new owner will purchase represents revenue.” In the case of a fire, is less “core space” more valuable or the integrity of the building and the lives of residents more valuable?
Although I can’t say I know much about fire safety regulation, and I’m sure it is taken into account in the process of building, I think of buildings like the Twin Towers in reading plans for the taller, more slender buildings of the future of NYC. In the case that one of these buildings was threatened by fire or terrorist attacks, how could firefighters reach those people trapped in higher floors? Ladders can only take rescuers to a certain height, and if there are only a limited number of staircases because developers wanted to “maximize profit”, that profit they sought won’t be worth much in the case of a tragedy.
