Skyscraper of the Day: Meet The ‘Skinniest Skyscraper In The World’

111 West 57th Street is a 84-story, 1,428-foot (435-meter) supertall skyscraper located on ‘Billionare’s Row’ in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Adjacent to the historic Steinway Hall, 111W57 is the second tallest residential building in the western hemisphere. Furthermore, it is also the most slender building in the world with a width to height ratio of 1:24 thus earning the nickname, ‘the skinniest skyscraper’. Construction on the tower began in 2015 and it was topped out in late 2019 although it is yet to be fully completed and opened.

The striking residential tower is located two blocks south of Central Park, is designed with a glittering facade of glass and terracotta. The architects, SHoP, designed the façade to read at multiple scales and vantage points; the shaping of the Terra Cotta that clads the east and west façades creates a sweeping play on shadow and light from the city scale, as the texture provides richness up close. The artisanal material has graced the city’s buildings for over a century, each panel is individually cast, fired, and hand glazed. The meticulous system, both repetitive and varied, is comprised of thousands of cast panels that clad the east and west facades of the tower, creating a radiantly striated pattern and accommodating subtle openings in glass and bronze. The terracotta is also contextually important as it harkens back to the materiality of the Steinway Hall and other landmarks of Manhattan’s Golden Age. A glass curtain wall along the North façade will take full advantage of the tower’s unprecedented sweeping symmetrical views of Central Park.

The slender structure, constructed by JDS Development and Property Markets Group, will offer 46 super luxury apartments and is widely expected to be the “first $100 million sale in NYC”. At its base the tower is nestled into a courtyard wrapped by the existing landmarked Steinway Building. Set back from the street, the tower maintains visibility to the Steinway Building’s front façade and preserves the Rotunda space of Steinway’s main showroom.

The tower incorporates the highest strength concrete in the world at 14,000 psi, paired with over 5.5 million feet of rebar. An efficient structural core provides the broadest floor plates possible, with over 14 feet in ceiling height.