|
About Trump World Tower, 845 United Nations Plaza
The tallest residential tower in the city when it was built, this 861-foot-high, 72-story building created a major controversy in 1999 that led in large part to the city's decision to revise its Zoning resolution, a notoriety it shares with 120 Broadway, the 42-story office building in Lower Manhattan whose huge bulk led to city to create its first Zoning Resolution in 1916.
Developed by Donald Trump, the city's most flamboyant builder, the bronze-glass tower rises without setbacks and was erected "as-of-right," that is, within the existing zoning and building regulations and therefore did not require approval by various city agencies.
The project flabbergasted and outraged many of its neighbors who fought unsuccessfully to block it. Mr. Trump had assembled several contiguous lots and transferred their development rights to the avenue to significantly increase the size of his sheer tower.
Mr. Trump has rarely shied away from controversy, or a building opportunity. Indeed, he is a classic New York builder: someone who builds to the limits of the law and its loopholes.
Part of the controversy came from those who felt that this project demonstrated that the city's zoning was flawed. Also at issue was the fact that this tower broke with the tradition in the area that no building fronting on the grounds of the United Nations on the other side of First Avenue should be taller than its famous Secretariat Building.
While some area residents thought this was part of existing zoning, it apparently was not although it had been a rule that had been followed by such major projects as the nearby 860 United Nations Plaza, a twin-towered mixed-use complex on the north side of the UN's property, and the United Nations Plaza office and hotel complex, designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates, across from it on First Avenue at 44th Street.
In their fine book, "New York 2000, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Bicentennial and the Millenium," (The Monacelli Press, 2006), Robert A. M. Stern, David Fishman and Jacob Tilove noted that Mr. Trump "after interviewing Kohn Pedersen Fox, John Portman, Frank Gehry and Robert A. M. Stern, Trump selected as his architect Costas Kondylis, who had recently collaborated with Philip Johnson on the reworking of the Gulf & Western Building into the Trump International Hotel and Tower." The authors quoted Karrie Jacobs to the effect that "while other developers clad residential towers in masonry, striving for the dignity of a classic prewar building, Trump is building New York's first Modernist-revival apartment tower. It pays homage to Mies and Modernism in a kitschy way that readers of Wallpaper magazine will appreciate. Kondylis takes the language of the Seagram Building - all that glass, all those straight lines, the stern, sober mien - and exaggerates it."
The authors also wrote that "In one of his most discussed articles, the mercurial Herbert Muschamp [then the architecture critic of The New York Times] enthusiastically greeted the building by favorably comparing it to Trump's Riverside South development on the West Side" and described it as "undeniably the most primal building New York has seen in quite a while." "Ignoring the improbable structural shifts at the tower's midpoint and the un-rhythmic (and strictly functional) arrangement of the window bays," the authors continued, "Muschamp confined his pleasure to a 'visual appeal [that] derives, first of all, from the contrast between its amplitude of scale and its simplicity of shape.' Muschamp amazingly contrasted it with the Empire State Building...where he found 'an unbalanced ratio of width to depth. Depending on your perspective, the tower shifts from sliveresque to monolithic....After all the frou-frou launched into the skyline for the past generation - the fussy attempts at three-dimensional collage; the ersatz Art Deco confections weighed down by stepped silhouettes and ornate crowns - it is pleasing to see a flat roof raised to the top of the skyline by four flush glass walls.'"
In 2001, Tenants moved into this sheer tower that is only slightly shorter than Citicorp Center on Lexington Avenue and about the same height, though much more slender, than 30 Rockefeller Center and the MetLife (former PanAm) Building straddling Park Avenue.
While its clean lines follow in the modern traditions of the United Nations complex, its bronze color sets it apart from the blue-green tone of the Secretariat Building and the United Nations Plaza complex to the south, but it is of the same palette as the triangular-topped 100 United Nations apartment tower nearby on 48th Street, which it dwarfs.
Aesthetically, the glass facade design makes more sense in this context than the Post-Modern masonry designs of several other contemporary luxury apartment towers and the tower's proportions are elegant when not considered in this context. Indeed, Mr. Trump has fared well with bronze-glass towers at Trump Tower, designed by Der Scutt, on Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets and Trump International Plaza and Hotel, designed by Philip Johnson, at 1 Central Park West at Columbus Center, a recladding of the former black-and-white Gulf & Western Building, and his Trump Plaza apartment tower designed by Philip Birnbaum on Third Avenue between 61st and 62nd Streets.
(Trump is not wedded to the bronze-glass motif as evidenced by the very attractive Trump Palace apartment tower designed by Frank Williams on Third Avenue at 68th Street and his redevelopment of the Barbizon Plaza Hotel on Central Park South into the Trump Parc apartment building, and his acquisition of the skyscraper at 40 Wall Street.)
Because it fronts on the park on the northern part of the United Nations, the Trump World Tower has protected views of the East River and the United Nations to the east. Its upper apartments have sensational views and Mr. Trump provides his luxury apartment buildings with sufficient glitz and amenities to attract residents from around the world.
Several floors will have ceilings higher than 10 feet.
This neck-cranner would obviously be quite at home in Houston, but probably not in Dallas where tastes run a bit wilder. It would even not be too bad at Mr. Trump's Riverside South project, which he scaled back and radically redesigned to meet community opposition and which will now have rather uniform, quasi-post-modern buildings, albeit quite tall, but no central landmark of great stature.
Originally, Mr. Trump hoped to build the world's tallest building at Riverside South, and perhaps he considered this a consolation prize.
Among the many residents in the area who protested against this tower was Walter Cronkite, the retired anchorman for CBS News. In a Sept. 8, 1999 article by Blaine Harden in The New York Times, Mr. Cronkite was quoted as saying that the protest was "supported by a whole lot more less-than-wealthy folks who are sharply offended by the unnecessary grossness of this project." The story noted that Mr. Cronkite lived in an apartment on the 25th floor at 870 United Nations Plaza and would have his view of the Chrysler Building blocked by Mr. Trump's tower.
Other protesters in the same building included Walter Wriston, the former chairman of Citibank, and William H. Donaldson, a founder of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the investment house. The article said that Mr. Cronkite even wrote a letter to President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea imploring him to use his influence on the Daewoo Corporation, which was the project's principal lender, to get Mr. Trump to change his plans.
The city's rezoning could not effect the project because it had been initiated before the new regulations were enacted and were therefore "grandfathered" and unaffected.
The building has a doorman, a concierge, a health club, and a garage, but no balconies.
It replaced the Engineering Societies Building that had been designed in 1961 by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon.
There is considerable traffic on First Avenue and the building is quite far away from subways. There are crosstown buses on 42nd, 49th and 50th Streets. There are numerous restaurants and neighborhood stores further north on First Avenue and on Second Avenue.
|
