The Tallest Buildings

The American city is growing up ... and up ... and up ...

New York is about to build twin 110-story towers, the highest in the world; San Francisco is to have a 60-story building, and other cities are not far behind.

Why this renewed thrust toward the stars, and what does it portend for the future environment of the American city? It appears to be the product of a convergence of some of the most significant trends in our urban age, including:

1) Growth in white-collar employment. With over 70 percent of the labor force already in service industries and with the proportion constantly going up, there is no surprise in the growth of demand for office space. With affluence, the space is getting bigger and fancier.

2) Advances in construction technology, making high-rise buildings more economic.

3) Relaxation of legal height restrictions in some cities and changes in zoning codes in others. This, no doubt, reflects pressures to take off restraints that hold up profitable operations.

As a consequence of all this, in a number of cities the title of "tallest building in town" will be claimed by new towers in the near future. Thus, in San Francisco, the Embarcadero Center Building of 60 stories will reach beyond the 53 stories of the new Bank of America Building. In Los Angeles, the Bank of America, with Atlantic Richfield as joint developer, is erecting the city's tallest building in the form of twin 50 to-55-story office towers. In Atlanta, the First National Bank's 41-story tower of white marble, aluminum, and glass is rising to a height of 551 feet in the heart of the commercial district. A 41-story, 750-foot building is now under construction in Charlotte, North Carolina. In Toronto, the 56-story, 740-foot Toronto Dominion Centre is claimed to be the tallest building in the British Commonwealth. Among other cities, Seattle, Denver, and Pittsburgh have their latest tallest building recently in place or under construction.

Chicago and New York can lay claim to the most dramatic of the tall buildings. Chicago's John Hancock Center will rival the Empire State Building; and New York's World Trade Center will surpass it as the world's tallest building.

When completed in 1968, the John Hancock Center will top 1,100 feet, 150 below the Empire State. In terms of use, its 100 floors can be viewed as a planned community. There are apartments on 49 floors, office space on 34 floors, and parking space on 7 floors. A full-scale Chicago branch of New York's Bergdorf Goodman will occupy the first 5 floors of the structure; parking, offices, apartments, and TV production facilities follow in ascending order; and there is the ubiquitous restaurant at the top. A person could live there in an apartment; commute by elevator to his lower floor office, do some shopping in the department store at the base, and dine out at the penthouse restaurant—without ever leaving the building. Looking ahead, it may be that "living over the store" will be a status symbol.

The price tag on the John Hancock Center is $95 million; that on the World Trade Center is $525 million. The World Trade Center is sponsored by the Port of New York Authority; its major features are twin 110-story office buildings, each a square shaft 1,350 feet high. The project cleared its last legal hurdle in June 1967 after years of debate before city agencies, and is scheduled for completion in 1972. Major items of controversy included the question of payments to the city in lieu of taxes and expected interference with TV broadcasting from atop the Empire State Building. The first problem was solved by payment to the city of $1.7 million a year during the construction period (roughly equal to the amount the city had been collecting in taxes on the property) and agreed-upon payment of more than $6 million a year in the first year of full occupancy. That amount will rise or fall thereafter with general tax rates and assessed valuations. The second problem was solved by the decision of the TV broadcasting companies to move their transmitters to the Trade Center.

The Center was opposed by "The Committee for a Reasonable Trade Center," which argued that the property would operate at a loss; some interpreted this as concern by real estate firms that they might operate at a loss, given the addition of a very large increment of office space. The increment is 10 million square feet, which compares with a present total of 186 million square feet in Manhattan south of 60th Street. The Regional Plan Association supported the Trade Center, arguing that it would meet an important regional goal by locating jobs in "compatible surroundings" and in a readily accessible area.

Another organization, a "Committee to Oppose the World Trade Center," focused its opposition on aesthetic issues. Its arguments include the charges that the buildings would be overpowering and ugly, particularly because they are square shafts rather than spires. But the square form no doubt reflects new zoning regulations. On scale, the Lower Manhattan Plan, prepared for the New York City Planning Commission by outside consultants, argued, "These new towers can be considered no more out of scale than were the Woolworth Building and the Empire State Building in their day."

Urban life and activities will increasingly be influenced by the settlement and exploitation of the third dimension. Future zoning regulations may have to be expressed by a three-dimensional model addressed to the mutual protection of airlines, lines-of-sight for high frequency transmission, residential "strata," and economic activities from destructive intrusions resulting from increasingly intense use of air space. As more and more of urban life takes place within the walls of the new tall structures, social engineering will be called upon to adapt their large inner spaces into artificial environments capable of yielding satisfactions now considered essential to the full life. In terms of the changes promised and the problems posed, invasion of the third dimension will be equivalent to opening up a new physical frontier.