page_title: List of tallest buildings in New York City
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: List of tallest buildings in New York City / History
caption_attribution_description: English: panorama of Manhattan's west side, taken from Weehawken, NJ, March 26, 2020
context_page_description: New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is home to over 7,000 completed high-rise buildings of at least 115 feet, of which at least 132 are taller than 600 feet. The tallest building in New York is One World Trade Center, which rises 1,776 feet. The 104-story skyscraper also stands as the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the sixth-tallest building in the world. The second-tallest completed building in the city is 432 Park Avenue, standing at 1,396 feet, and the third-tallest is 30 Hudson Yards. Not counting its antenna, the 4th-tallest is the 102-story Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan, which was finished in 1931 and rises to 1,250 feet, increased to 1,454 feet by its antenna. It is the sixth-tallest building in the United States and the 41st-tallest building in the world. The fifth-tallest building in New York is the Bank of America Tower, which rises to 1,200 feet, including its spire.
  The Empire State Building stood as the tallest building in the world from its completion until 1970, when construction on the 1,368-foot North Tower of the original World Trade Center surpassed it.
context_section_description: The history of skyscrapers in New York City began with the construction of the Equitable Life, Western Union, and Tribune buildings in the early 1870s. These relatively short early skyscrapers, sometimes referred to as "preskyscrapers" or "protoskyscrapers", included features such as a steel frame and elevators—then-new innovations that were used in the city's later skyscrapers. Modern skyscraper construction began with the completion of the World Building in 1890; the structure rose to a pinnacle of 349 feet (106 m). Though not the city's first high-rise, it was the first building to surpass the 284-foot (87 m) spire of Trinity Church. The World Building, which stood as the tallest in the city until 1899, was demolished in 1955 to allow for the construction of an expanded entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Park Row Building, at 391 feet (119 m), was the city's tallest building from 1899 to 1908, and the world's tallest office building during the same time span. By 1900, fifteen skyscrapers in New York City exceeded 250 feet (76 m) in height.
  New York has played a prominent role in the development of the skyscraper. Since 1890, ten of those built in the city have held the title of world's tallest building. New York City went through two very early high-rise construction booms, the first of which spanned the 1890s through the 1910s, and the second from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s. During this period 16 skyscrapers over 600 feet (183 m) were built—including the Singer Building, Met Life Tower, Woolworth Building, 40 Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, and the Empire State Building, each of which was the tallest in the world at the time of its completion, the last remaining so for forty years.
  Skyscraper construction resumed in the early 1960s, with construction surges in the early 1970s, late 1980s, and late 2010s. In total, the city has seen the rise of over 140 completed and topped-out structures at least 600 feet (183 m) high, including the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and the current World Trade Center redevelopment.
caption: Nine-mile (14 km) high-resolution panorama of Manhattan's west side, from 115 Street to The Battery, taken from Weehawken, NJ, March 26, 2020
exif: {"Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 11 Pro", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2020:04:30 21:08:31", "Image TileWidth": "512", "Image TileLength": "512", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[40, 46, 1607/100]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[74, 0, 2921/50]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "372315/10676", "GPS GPSSpeedRef": "K", "GPS GPSSpeed": "4103/428806", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "498106/3467", "GPS GPSDestBearingRef": "T", "GPS GPSDestBearing": "498106/3467", "GPS Tag 0x001F": "187649/13677", "Image GPSInfo": "836", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1182", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "1589", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2519", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "20", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:03:26 16:41:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:03:26 16:41:42", "EXIF OffsetTime": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeOriginal": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeDigitized": "-04:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "33263/2944", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "123988/11039", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "752", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "752", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "14469", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1429", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "6", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[6, 6, 2, 2]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 11 Pro back camera 6mm f/2"}