Lavish residential skyscrapers prompt concern over shadows

The construction of a new luxury residential tower that will surpass the current tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere in height has prompted New York City to reconsider its policy on megatowers.

The current high-rise champ rises 1,400 feet above Manhattan. The concern is over whether the long shadows skyscrapers cast over Central Park are harmful enough to restrict their height.

Other cities have studied the impact the shadows cast by high-rises have on the public’s enjoyment of public parks. The Washington Post reported that San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Toronto also have struggled to find a balance between building taller in an effort to fit more housing into crowded urban spaces with the need for sunlight below.

Though New York’s latest residential skyscrapers are targeted for the wealthy, such rules could impact tens of thousands of affordable housing units in the proposal stage.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.