The Billionaires' Row towers are, in other words, at the frontier of residential architecture, in that their residents are like test subjects for living and sleeping - or trying to sleep - in contexts not previously done before. It has already been surpassed by a newcomer on New York’s Billionaire’s Row in Midtown Manhattan, but it remains one of the most expensive apartment buildings in the world. A brazen homeowner has listed their condo in the rapidly sinking, and precariously tilting Millennium Tower, which stands 58-stories high, has been dubbed the 'leaning tower of San Francisco' Condo in 'leaning tower of San Francisco' listed for 5.6m.
Although no lawsuits appear to have been filed over the design and construction of One57 by Christian de Portzamparc, the first supertall completed on the Row and relatively short at just 1,005', the new lawsuit at 432 Park Avenue portends potential issues at 111 West 57th Street (SHoP Architects, 1,440') and Central Park Tower (AS+GG, 1,550'), which are both nearing completion and are, like 432, notably tall and slender.Įach of these towers uses mass dampers to counteract sway from the wind, alongside other technology/engineering features that enable people to live at heights only previously enjoyed by workers in office buildings, which have considerably larger footprints and mass to address lateral forces and other concerns. The tower at 432 Park Ave., far left, became the tallest residential building in the world in 2015. The $125 million amount "could rise," according to a lawyer representing the condo board, who described the suit as "a work in progress in ascertaining what’s wrong."Ĥ32 Park Avenue is one of four residential supertalls (defined as skyscrapers over 300m/~1,000') along the so-called "Billionaries' Row" on 57th Street between Park and Eighth Avenues a couple of blocks south of Central Park. 22, was caused by a blown flange, a ribbed collar that connects piping, around a high-pressure water feed on the 60th floor. The claims are basically the same in the lawsuit filed on Thursday, September 23: being trapped on elevators stalled because of the building sway that occurs in tall towers floods and leaks attributed to poor plumbing installation noise complaints related to the quality of construction and power outages that shut down air conditioning, among others. There have been a number of floods in the building, including two leaks in November 2018 that the general manager of the building, Len Czarnecki, acknowledged in emails to residents.
The lawsuit filed last week, as reported by the New York Times, comes 7-1/2 months after the newspaper reported how the complaints of residents living in the 1,400-foot tower revealed "strife inside one of the city’s most secretive and exclusive towers." Most importantly, the Times asserted that all of the claims "may be connected to the building’s main selling point: its immense height." The defects in February included "millions of dollars of water damage from plumbing and mechanical issues frequent elevator malfunctions and walls that creak like the galley of a ship."