432 Park Avenue is a residential skyscraper at 57th Street and Park Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. The tower was developed by CIM Group and Harry B. Macklowe and designed by Rafael Viñoly. A part of Billionaires' Row, 432 Park Avenue has some of the most expensive residences in the city, with the median unit selling from 10.5 to 90 million dollars. At the time of its completion in 2015, 432 Park Avenue was the third-tallest building in the United States and the tallest residential building in the world. , it is the sixth-tallest building in the United States, the fifth-tallest building in New York City, and the third-tallest residential building in the world.
432 Park Avenue has 84 numbered stories and a mezzanine above ground. The tower's exterior is a lattice of poured-in-place concrete made with white Portland cement. The tower is segmented into 12-story blocks separated by open double-story mechanical spaces that allow wind gusts to pass through the building. It features 125 condominiums and amenities, such as a private restaurant, for residents. The skyscraper has received mixed reviews from both professionals and the public, with commentary about both its slenderness and its symbolism as a residence for the ultra-wealthy.
432 Park Avenue is located on the site of the former Drake Hotel, which was sold to Macklowe in 2006. The project faced delays for five years because of lack of financing as well as difficulties in acquiring the properties on the site. Construction plans were approved for 432 Park Avenue in 2011 and excavations began the next year. Sales within 432 Park Avenue were launched in 2013; the building topped out during October 2014 and was officially completed in 2015. After the building's completion, residents complained of mechanical and structural problems, leading to multiple lawsuits in the 2020s.
Site The building is located in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. It is in the middle of the block bounded by 56th Street to the south, Madison Avenue to the west, 57th Street to the north, and Park Avenue to the east. The roughly L-shaped lot encompasses . The tower is centered within the block, while its base extends east along 56th Street to Park Avenue. The base has a frontage of on Park Avenue, though its main entrance is on 56th Street. Nearby buildings include Park Avenue Tower to the south, 550 Madison Avenue to the southwest, 590 Madison Avenue to the west, the Fuller Building and Four Seasons Hotel New York to the north, Ritz Tower to the northeast, and 425 Park Avenue to the east.
Architecture 432 Park Avenue was designed by Rafael Viñoly, and SLCE Architects served as the architect of record. The interiors were designed by Deborah Berke and the firm Bentel & Bentel. Other firms involved in construction included structural engineer WSP Cantor Seinuk, MEP engineer WSP Flack and Kurtz, and general contractor Lendlease. The project was developed by Harry B. Macklowe's company, Macklowe Properties.
Form and facade
432 Park Avenue has a mezzanine and 84 numbered stories. Five two-story windbreaks, spaced every 12 floors from the top, are unenclosed. The windbreaks contain modular mechanical services for the six floors above and below to reduce required ducting. The floor numbering system includes mechanical levels near the building's base, so the top story is numbered as floor 96.
When 432 Park Avenue officially topped out at , it became the tallest building in New York City by roof height, and the third-tallest by total height, after One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building. The building is so tall, even compared to others in New York City, that its construction required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. , 432 Park Avenue is the 30th-tallest building in the world, the sixth-tallest building in the United States, and the fifth-tallest building in New York City. At 15:1, the height-to-width ratio of 432 Park is one of the most slender in the world. The building's height was permitted by the city's zoning regulations partly because nearly a quarter of the building's floor area is devoted to structural and mechanical equipment, which is excluded from floor area ratio calculations. Due to its slenderness, the building has been characterized as part of a new breed of New York City "pencil towers", and it is particularly susceptible to high winds.
The tower's exterior is a lattice of poured-in-place concrete made from white Portland cement. Viñoly thought the concrete frame, as opposed to an all-glass curtain wall, would reassure residents of the building's sturdiness. Each usable floor features six windows on each elevation of the facade, and each windbreak features two tiers of six unglazed openings per elevation. The facade forms a regular grid of apertures. The base is clad with limestone, but no additional finishes were applied to the tower. Viñoly said that the regular lattice was inspired by a 1905 trash can by Austrian designer Josef Hoffmann. The windbreaks were intended to reduce swaying caused by wind, but after the tower was completed, the facade experienced excess wind forces that caused the concrete to crack. Concrete cylinders for mechanical equipment, which were illuminated at night, were placed inside the windbreaks.
Abutting the main tower are a plaza designed by Zion Breen Richardson Associates. This plaza has birch trees and a vehicular drop-off. There is also a retail entrance at 56th Street and Park Avenue, an underground retail space, and a four-story office wing on 57th Street. This retail space has a tinted glass facade.
Structural features
The superstructure is composed of a square, reinforced concrete core. This core has walls and an outer shell of columns that taper from wide at the bottom of the tower to at the top. The core houses the elevator shafts and mechanical services. There are six elevator cabs, including service cabs; the top floors contain two elevator shafts. The tower also contains an emergency-stair shaft with two concrete stairways. To maximize occupiable space, the stairways are installed in a scissor-stair configuration, in which each stairway's flights are installed atop the other's. The distance between the tower's core and the exterior is on all sides.
The floor plates of the tower stories are square with sides, giving each floor a usable area of . The floor-to-floor height of each story is , of which at least is the depth of the floor slabs. Upper floors have slabs up to thick to add more mass, which dampens acceleration from wind loads. To finalize the structural design prior to construction, engineers performed a dynamic analysis for stresses, deflections, and horizontal movements to revise the tower's lateral force resisting system against wind and seismic motion. The design was also placed in a wind tunnel.
The foundation of the building contains about 60 rock anchors that descend into the underlying bedrock, providing stability. The open-air windbreaks are also intended to reduce swaying by decreasing the tower's wind load. To mitigate swaying further, the top of the tower contains two Motioneering designed tuned mass dampers, each weighing . The TMDs are placed between the 86th and 89th floors. Viñoly's team decided to install the TMDs after simulating the tower's projected wind forces at the Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland. Several additional dampers are located in the outriggers of some of the mechanical floors.
Interior
The finalized plans called for 147 apartments in total: 122 luxury condominium units of one to six bedrooms between floors 34 and 96, and 25 studio units on floors 28 and 29. The highest units, on floors 91 through 96, contain layouts that differ from those of the units on the floors below. The tower's condominium units feature -high ceilings. The smallest unit is a studio, while the largest unit is the , six-bedroom, seven-bath apartment on floor 96, with its own library. A sample medium-sized unit, #35B, covers with three bedrooms and four-and-a-half baths, facing south and west with views of Central Park to the northwest. Macklowe initially placed thick frames on some of the windows, as he wanted to highlight the views of Central Park, but some tenants removed these frames because they took up interior space.
The building's amenities include ceilings, golf training facilities, and private dining and screening rooms. On floor 12 is an private restaurant with a private terrace, which has been led by chef Shaun Hergatt . Floors 12 through 16 comprise a "club unit" with a fitness center; a swimming complex with a pool, whirlpool, sauna, and steam room; private meeting rooms, including a 14-seat boardroom; and a library curated by Assouline Publishing. The Atlantic magazine described the screening room as having velvet armchairs and the meeting room as having mahogany paneling. Macklowe branded these amenities as the "432Club".
History Early plans
Macklowe acquisition 432 Park Avenue was the second supertall skyscraper in Billionaires' Row to be built, after One57. The first piece of the site to be acquired was the Drake Hotel at the corner of Park Avenue and 56th Street. The Drake, a 21-story, 495-room hotel, had been constructed in 1926 but, by the early 2000s, no longer attracted the celebrity clientele of its heyday. In January 2006, the hotel's owner, Host Hotels & Resorts, was intending to sell the property "in the mid-$400 million range", primarily marketing the site with the prospect of replacing the aging hotel with a mixed-use skyscraper. Harry Macklowe purchased the Drake that year for $418 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Macklowe paid French delicatessen company Fauchon $4 million to shorten the terms of their lease on the Drake Hotel's ground floor, requiring them to vacate in April 2007 instead of 2016. Shortly afterward, Fauchon sued Macklowe in New York Supreme Court claiming that the developer was harassing the store to leave; a judge ruled that Macklowe could not interfere with the store's operation before the lease expired.
Macklowe's next acquisition consisted of a assemblage on 57th Street, consisting of a 13-story building and five 5-story townhouses. In April 2007, Macklowe purchased the Buccellati store at 46 East 57th Street for $47.5 million. This followed Macklowe's purchase of the Audemars Piguet store at 40 East 57th Street for $19.2 million, the Franck Muller store at 38 East 57th Street for $60 million, as well as 44 and 50 East 57th Street for $41 million. Following over 14 months of negotiations, Macklowe also had to pay Audemars Piguet $16.6 million to end their lease early and move across the street to 137 East 57th Street. The total cost of additional nearby parcels and air rights brought the acquisition cost to over $724 million. These purchases gave Macklowe a large L-shaped site between 56th and 57th Streets. In early 2007, Macklowe Properties secured a $543 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank on the site. Macklowe reportedly planned a 65-story Armani-branded tower that would consist of three stories of retail, offices until the 20th floor, topped by a 10-story hotel and 33 floors of residential space. Nordstrom had signed a letter of intent to open their first New York store, a flagship, at the building's base.