While the battle over the deliberately-misnamed "Ground Zero Mosque" rages on, another (quieter) debate is transpiring about another proposed new building in Manhattan. Developers want to build something called 15 Penn Plaza, which would be a towering skyscraper opposite Penn Station. The controversy is that it would be 1,216 feet high. A few blocks away, there's this thing called the Empire State Building, which is 1,250 feet high. Ergo, it would make for a major change in the New York skyline, rendering all scenic postcards obsolete…or something. Anyway, you can read about the debate here.
What's of special note to us is that 15 Penn Plaza would rise on the site of what is now the Hotel Pennsylvania, a venerable enterprise that for about twenty years now has looked like it was about to be demolished. I've stayed there a few times and you got the idea that if a doorknob was broken, the owners didn't want to go to the expense of fixing it because, you know, the hotel may get torn down any day. Or maybe just collapse on its own accord. The place has a lot of history, including being the site of (perhaps) more comic book conventions than any other building in the world…and certainly my first.
I have no opinion on whether that structure should come down and 15 Penn Plaza should go up…and up and up. I just wanted to mention it and add this…
The Empire State Building is not the tallest building in the world or even the country, though most folks probably think it is. (What is: The Willis Tower and the Trump International in Chicago are both taller, as are more than a dozen others worldwide.) The Empire State was the tallest in New York until the North Tower of the World Trade Center was completed, whereupon the E.S.B. fell to second place. When the W.T.C. fell to nothingness, the Empire State reclaimed the title…a pretty crummy way to become #1 but not its fault. Anyway, because of its height, that place King Kong scaled is Numero Uno in its own turf and enjoys a certain fame and stature because of it.
If you were putting up a building that was going to be 1,216 feet high, wouldn't you go the extra distance and seize the title? It would only take another 35 feet. What is that? Three more stories? How much extra could that cost? Maybe you could even do part of it with a smaller section of tower or something, the point being it's a shame to come that close to skyline dominance and fall short. I don't know the developers at all but they have to have either the healthiest egos in the world (because they feel no need to show off) or the sickest (because they so easily concede defeat). I mean, how many men look down at their own genitalia and say, "Oh, that's plenty big enough?" I mean, besides you and me?