The supertall race in Midtown Manhattan is marching skyward at an astonishing rate, with at least four towers on West 57th Street destined to be among the world’s tallest. Now we have some official-official images of the Nordstrom Tower, which, at 1,775 feet, will at some point be the tallest residential building on the planet.
The images come to us via New York Yimby, where Nikolai Fedak points out a very interesting detail. Although the roof of the Nordstrom Tower is higher than the World Trade Center’s roof, its spire will be one foot shorter than the WTC’s 1,776 feet in what appears to be some kind of polite gesture to let WTC remain the country’s tallest building (for now). But in actuality, Fedak argues, the Nordstrom Tower is much taller:
The slight elevation of Midtown compared to the Financial District (a net gain of approximately 70 feet) will mean that 217 West 57th Street’s spire will actually rise approximately 1,850 feet above sea level. While the WTC may retain the title of NYC’s tallest by spire height, 217 West 57th’s relative prominence to most New Yorkers will actually be somewhat greater.
So there you go. Not that any of this really matters anyway: By 2018, when the Nordstrom Tower is finished, there will probably be a half dozen taller towers going up on the very same street. [New York Yimby]