432 Park Avenue

A pencil-thin supertall residential tower with a 1:15 slenderness ratio and a grid of square windows.

The tower belongs to a stretch of Midtown known as Billionaires' Row, and it has some of the most expensive homes in the city. It has 125 condominiums and extras such as a private restaurant for residents. Its outside is a square grid of white concrete, and some people love the simple look while others find the tower too slender or too much a symbol of the ultra-rich.

A pencil on the skyline

The tower is 15 times taller than it is wide, one of the slimmest shapes in the world, so it is called a pencil tower. It has 84 numbered floors, but the numbering skips some mechanical levels, so the top floor is numbered 96. Nearly a quarter of the floor area is used for structure and machinery, which the city did not count toward its size limits, helping permit the great height. The Federal Aviation Administration also had to approve it.

Grid, concrete and open floors

The outside is a lattice of poured-in-place concrete made with white Portland cement, forming a regular grid of 10-foot (3 m) square openings, with limestone at the base. Viñoly said the grid was inspired by a 1905 trash can designed by Josef Hoffmann. Every 12 floors there is an open two-story gap that holds mechanical equipment and lets wind pass through, which was meant to reduce swaying. The strong concrete core is a 30-by-30-foot square.

From hotel to tower

The tower stands where the old Drake Hotel once was, which Macklowe bought in 2006. The project was held up for five years by missing money and by problems buying all the land. Plans were approved in 2011, digging started in 2012, sales opened in 2013, the top was reached in October 2014, and the building was officially complete in 2015. Since then residents have complained about mechanical and structural problems, and there have been several lawsuits in the 2020s.

On the globe

The model shows the pencil-thin tower with its grid of square windows.