The owners of the Empire State Building are objecting to a proposed 69-story skyscraper that would be built two blocks away. The new building, called 15 Penn Plaza, would go where the Hotel Pennsylvania is currently located, at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, and would rise to about 1200 feet — or just 25 feet lower than the top floor of the Empire State Building.
And the owners of the Empire State Building are putting up a fight. “New York will have a giant black eye on the world stage for allowing such poor city planning to take the vision of New York and marring it in a billion people’s minds around the world,” said Anthony Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, LLC, part owner of the iconic building. “Would you put this building next to the Eiffel Tower? Would you put this building next to London’s Big Ben tower? Would you put an oil derrick next to the Statue of Liberty?”
– Matthew Schuerman, WNYC News.
Who knows if this thing will actually get done because obviously 1200-foot skyscraper is a pretty big undertaking, but it’s not exactly an oil derrick. Plus one of Malkin’s examples of iconic beauty — the Eiffel Tower — was denounced as an eyesore when it was first built.
And in living, breathing, growing cities, skylines should be fluid things. I suppose the preservationist urge is always a factor, and so what Malkin and his ilk are doing is just sort of part of the natural progression, but if another skyscraper gets built near or next to the Empire State Building then it will just become, in time, every bit as much a part of what we see when we picture Manhattan.
I happen to love the Empire State Building. Maybe it’s because it’s the first skyscraper I knew, and the central one in the city I grew up near. But to me it seems perfectly befitting its name, like the architectural epitome of the American Empire. Wham. Here I am. Yield to my awesomeness.
But from the certain angles on the Jersey Turnpike it does look a bit lonely. Not sure how the proposed Penn Plaza building will affect that, nor do I know how I feel about the building — it’s hard to get a good sense from the renderings, but it certainly doesn’t look inexplicably awesome like this. We will probably find out, I suppose:
Tedquarters 
It does look lonely. Although its pretty cool in some spots like you said around the TP and approaching the tunnel, when all the othr buildings and skyline are blocked by the elevated land, and all you can see is the top of the empire state building.
How the hell is a 69 story skyscraper just 25 feet shorter than the ESB? Is there some giant spire on the other skyscraper? Or are they planning on having ridiculously high ceilings on each floor?