Central Park Tower

Central Park Tower is a very tall apartment building at 217 West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It rises about 472 metres (1,550 feet), which makes it the tallest mostly residential building in the world. By the height of its roof it is also the tallest building outside Asia.

It stands on a row of super-tall towers nicknamed Billionaires' Row. Architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill designed a slim glass tower with stainless-steel fins, and it holds 179 condominiums. A department store fills the base, and a part of the tower sticks out sideways over a neighbouring building, the Art Students League.

Building a skyscraper on a tiny plot

Digging began in 2014 and the tower reached its full height in September 2019. Developers Extell and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group paid for it, and the project cost about three billion dollars. Money problems and slow early sales delayed the finish, and the building was done around 2020 and 2021.

Because the land is narrow, engineers designed the tower to stay steady against New York winds, and the top floor is numbered 136 even though there are 98 floors above ground.

The sideways cantilever

Part of the tower reaches out over the roof of the Art Students League building next door. A cantilever is a beam or floor held at one end that sticks out into the air, like a diving board. Guinness World Records lists this tower as the tallest building with a cantilever, a record it has held since 2019.

On the globe

The model shows the slim glass tower with its pinstripe of steel fins. Look for the sideways overhang near the base.