The City's First LinkNYC Wi-Fi Kiosks Unveiled - 6sqft

As Crain’s first reported, the first of the city’s upcoming 7,500 LinkNYC Wi-Fi kiosks have officially rolled out today. Two new “links” (as they’ll be called), have sprouted up along Third Avenue in the East Village, one at the corner of East 15th Street and the other at East 17th Street. Each kiosk measures 9.5 feet tall and will be equipped with a gigabit-speed Wi-Fi connection with a 150-foot range, charging stations, a touch-screen that provides maps and info about city services, and a speaker phone that will let users make domestic calls—and all for free! The kiosks are meant to replace NYC’s 6,000 now-defunct pay phones.

The network of links will cost about $200 million to implement, but according to Crain’s, who attended today’s LinkNYC press unveiling, advertising generated by the kiosks are expected to bring in $500 million in revenue over the next 12 years. The designs themselves are the product of CityBridge, a technology consortium that teamed up with the city after winning a 12-year contract through the design competition Reinvent Payphones.

While the two kiosks debuting today won’t be fully functional just yet, they will give New Yorkers an idea of what’s to come. The gigabit-speed Wi-Fi connection is expected to kick in over the next two weeks, as eight other links planned for Third Avenue below 58th Street are installed. In February, the trial phase will bring a tablet component into the mix, this bit of tech giving users the ability to make phone calls and search the web. It’s expected by June that 500 more kiosks will be installed across the five boroughs. By 2024, the city will be covered with 7,500 links

Source: The City's First LinkNYC Wi-Fi Kiosks Unveiled Today! | 6sqft

New Renderings of One Vanderbilt, Midtown's Future Tallest Office Tower - 6sqft

 1 VANDERBILT AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES

The digital production studio Visualhouse has posted on their website our first motion video look at SL Green’s 63-story office tower known as One Vanderbilt. Hailed to forever change the face of Midtown East and reinvigorate the business district, the $1 billion-plus, 1.6-million-square-foot tower was unanimously approved by the City Council this past summer, thus granting SL Green the green light to begin construction of the supertower immediately.

Visualhouse’s newly released film and renderings provide us with a clearer picture of how the building’s full-block base will meet the street, and also remind us just how gargantuan the tower will be. According to the tower’s architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the tower will rise 1,501 feet to its spire, making it the third tallest building in the city upon completion. However, unlike the pencil-thin supertalls underway around Central Park, the project will throw up a substantial amount of bulk into the air.

The new nighttime depictions show the office floors will be topped by a sizable illuminated crown that is sure to join the Chrysler and Empire State Building as nighttime skyline fixtures.

Demolition of the pre-war buildings at the site is expected to last until the second quarter of 2016, and excavation/ foundation work is slated to end by 2017. TD Bank is already lined up to occupy 200,000 square feet of space in the building and will also provide a flagship retail branch at the base.

Source: New Renderings & Video of One Vanderbilt, Midtown's Future Tallest Office Tower | 6sqft

Mapping All 1.1 Billion NYC Taxi Trips Since 2009 - 6sqft

Mapping All 1.1 Billion NYC Taxi Trips Since 2009

POSTED ON THU, NOVEMBER 19, 2015BY DANA SCHULZIN CITYLIVING, MAPS, TRANSPORTATION

That’s 183,333,333 trips a year; 15,277,777 a month; and roughly 510,000 a day. And it likely took software developer Todd W. Schneider a long time to put all of that data into this stunning map of taxi pickups and drop offs over the past six years. Green boro taxis are represented in their signature color and traditional yellow cabs in white, with brighter areas representing more taxi activity. As Gothamist first noted, “Yellow cab pickups are concentrated south of Central Park in Manhattan, while drop offs spread north and east into Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx; drop off and pickup activity snakes like a glowworm from Manhattan to the airports: along the Van Wyck Expressway to JFK, and by 278 and 495 to La Guardia.”

Using the TLC’s public data, Schneider also created charts and maps that show taxi travel compared with uber rides; weekend destinations of bridge-and-tunnelers; a late-night taxi index; how weather affects taxi trips; weekday drop-offs at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup; airport traffic; cash versus credit card payments; and the dramatic increase in North Williamsburg taxi activity.

Above is a GIF showing the transformation of North Williamsburg taxi activity from 2011 (when the green cabs were introduced) to 2014, the area with the largest increase in taxi pickups. 72 percent of these pickups occurred late night, and we can see some of the specific spots where this is most prevalent, such as the Wythe Hotel, Output nightclub, and Verboten nightclub.

It’s also interesting to look at where those from neighboring locales go on the weekend. Though the first map above shows taxi pickups originating at Penn Station, most passengers are not going very far, ending up in the Meatpacking District, Chelsea, and Midtown. Not surprisingly, Murray Hill is the number one drop off spot, often known as the heart of the bridge and tunnel crowd.

“We’ve already covered the hipsters of Williamsburg and the B&Ts of Murray Hill, why not see what the taxi data can tell us about investment bankers, yet another of New York’s distinctive subcultures?” asks Schneider. As his graphs show, Goldman Sachs employees’ average drop off time is 7:59 a.m.; Citigroup is 7:51 a.m. Those taking taxis to these offices mostly get picked up in the West Village, Chelsea/Flatiron/Union Square, and Soho/Tribeca (in that order).

“I’m certainly not the first person to use the public taxi data to make maps, but I hadn’t previously seen a map that includes the entire dataset of pickups and drop offs since 2009 for both yellow and green taxis,” says Todd W. Schneider. To see the rest of his maps and charts, visit the project page HERE >>

[Via Gothamist]

Source: Mapping All 1.1 Billion NYC Taxi Trips Since 2009 | 6sqft

Robert A.M. Stern's 520 Park Avenue Finally Reaches Street Level, $130M Penthouse On Its Way - 6sqft

Two years since its groundbreaking, Zeckendorf Development’s tower o’ opulence at 520 Park Avenue has finally emerged from its cavernous trench. Set for completion in 2018, the Billionaires’ Row building will climb 54 floors and 780 feet into the Manhattan skyline, becoming the tallest and likely the most prestigious building on the Upper East Side. Envisioned by William Lie and Arthur Zeckendorf, 520 Park Avenue inherits the classically-inspired taste of the real estate dynasty’s prior projects. In the ’80s, their father William Zeckendorf Jr. erected some of the city’s largest post-modern apartment complexes such as Worldwide Plaza, Zeckendorf Towers, and the Park Belvedere. Here, the developers commissioned the esteemed architect/historian and dean of the Yale School of Architecture Robert A.M. Stern as the designer and SLCEas the architects of record. This team also collaborated together on 18 Gramercy Park South and 15 Central Park West, which shattered apartment records when opened in 2008. Intent on replicating its west side counterpart’s success, the Zeckendorfs again gathered the now-not-so-secret ingredients: a powerful address, palatial apartments, and most importantly, the coveted Central Park view, all of which will culminate in a jaw-dropping $130 million penthouse.

Aerial renderings via CityRealty

Diagram of the tallest current and upcoming slender skyscrapers in New York City. From left: 520 Park Avenue, 111 Murray Street, 56 Leonard,30 Park Place, 220 Central Park South, One57, 53W53, 432 Park Avenue, 111 West 57th Street, and Central Park Tower. Image courtesy of the Skyscraper Museum

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the slenderest of them all? The project site is only 60 feet wide, making 520 Park among the most slender skyscrapers in the city. Despite its Park Avenue address, the building is actually tucked midblock along 60th Street behind Christ Church, to which the project owes its address and air rights. To garner more floor area, the building will cantilever over much of the adjacent Grolier Club, capturing an additional 30 feet of width.

From Left: 520 Park Avenue, Sherry-Netherland, and the The Pierre

The tower will rise in relative isolation, roughly to the same height as the Woolworth Building downtown. Nearly all of the building’s 33 full-floor residences will posses views of Central Park since the site lies just outside of Midtown’s canyons and overlooks the protected Upper East Side Historic District. The tower’s cladding of warm Indiana Limestone is designed to soak up natural light and be evocative of the great New York apartment buildings of the 1920s and ’30s. At its pinnacle is a $130 million, three-level, 12,400-square-foot shrine of wealth. Its crown of four corner chimneys strung together by sets of pilasters, will join the fairytale tops of the Pierre and the Sherry-Netherland nearby.

Homes begin 170 feet up and cover a minimum of 4,600 square feet of. Amenities include a landscape courtyard, guest suites, private wine cellars, a bi-level health and fitness center, a swimming pool and spa, children’s playroom, and a screening area. Prices begin at $16 million and as 6sqft first reported last March, the developers are projecting a total sellout of $1.2 billion. The $130 million triplex penthouse was the most expensive apartment to hit the market. However, the three top floors of 220 Central Park South(another Billionaires’ Row tower designed by Robert A.M. Stern), is reported to be in contract for a whopping $200 million by billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin.

The construction site as of this week, via CityRealty

In a recent CNBC interview regarding the development, William L, Zeckendorf told media outlet that they’ve seen more Chinese buyers in the last 60 days than ever before. He also notes, “Probably more likely now than ever. We are seeing more and more interest in New York City from across the world, we’re also seeing record-breaking prices being paid by New Yorkers.”

Source: Robert A.M. Stern's 520 Park Avenue Finally Reaches Street Level, $130M Penthouse On Its Way | 6sqft