Since its completion in 2023, Brooklyn’s first supertall skyscraper has had an uplifting effect on the borough, writes Cara Greenberg.
Nobody plans a skyline the way Haussmann planned the boulevards of Paris. Skylines evolve, building by building – sometimes, as in Downtown Brooklyn – at a dizzy pace.
Since 2004, when rezoning allowed high-rise construction along a mile-long stretch of Flatbush Avenue formerly occupied by gas stations and tire shops, 10 buildings over 50 stories tall have sprung up, with nearly two dozen others at 30-plus.
Some liken its moody menace to the Tower of Sauron from Lord of the Rings
But until quite recently the Downtown Brooklyn skyline remained stubbornly unimpressive, a gap-toothed collection of rectilinear boxes.
I’m as jaded as only a native New Yorker can be. Downtown Brooklyn’s medium-sized skyline was about as thrilling to my eye as a midwest state capital. The other day, though, strolling along a brownstone-lined street in Fort Greene, I turned a corner and caught sight of the borough’s first supertall, the 93-story Brooklyn Tower, etched against the clouds.
At that moment, I wholeheartedly joined its ranks of admirers (including Dezeen’s readership, which voted it world’s best new skyscraper in 2023), and silently thanked it for finally bringing some heft to Brooklyn’s skyscape.
The 1,066-foot tower, designed by SHoP Architects, is exalted enough to compete with those of its high-and-mighty neighbor across the river. Its textured facade and crenelated crown of blackened steel and copper-anodized aluminum, inspired by the landmark Dime Savings Bank preserved at its base, recall the art deco majesties of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.
Some liken its moody menace, admiringly or pejoratively, to the Tower of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. At the least, its sheer size befits a borough that would be the nation’s fourth largest city in its own right if it wasn’t part of the largest.
If solvency was the aim, the Brooklyn Tower has yet to achieve it. Last summer, Silverstein Capital Properties took over the tower’s rental, retail, and unsold condo units in a $672 million deal, after JDS, the original developer, defaulted on a $240 million mezzanine loan.
For Brooklynites, this tower is a big deal
At that point, only 18 of the 150 high-floor condos had closed, and it’s been slowish going, too, for the approximately 300 market-rate rentals (there are about 150 units designated affordable), at prices resembling midtown Manhattan’s. Among the justifications: apartments with 10-foot ceilings and luxe bronze-and-stone finishes by Gachot Studios; a 66th floor loggia with a basketball court, playground and dog run; and a 75-foot lap pool (yet to be constructed) next to the immense dome of the historic bank downstairs.
But who cares about the troubles of financiers? The tower will be fully occupied eventually. Meanwhile, those who can afford it have stratospheric views, and the rest of us, pottering around on ground level, an uplifting beacon that reads “wow” from every angle.
“We knew it was going to be this icon or symbol, and we wanted to make a building that was legible, almost like a lighthouse, from 360 degrees,” architect Greg Pasquarelli, founding principal of SHoP, told Architectural Record’s Design:ED podcast.
For Brooklynites, this tower is a big deal. In the post-September 11 rush to build, the political will to replace New York City’s lost office space was there, but architectural imagination was not. Frank Gehry might have set things on a different course in 2006 if his proposed Miss Brooklyn, an aluminum-clad 62-story building conceived as a bride in a flowing gown, had gone forward and served as a creative spark.
But only the more recent buildings, including the Brooklyn Tower; Studio Gang’s 54-story 11 Hoyt, with its origami-like facade; The Brook, a handsome 51-story structure by Beyer Blinder Belle, nearing completion; the all-electric 44-story 505 State by Alloy, a gleaming blue-glass wedge anchoring a major intersection; and a second, as-yet-unbuilt Alloy tower on the same block, 19 stories taller, seen in renderings with a distinctive checkerboard facade, have the design-forward assertiveness earlier edifices lacked.
None are office buildings, however. In lieu of the workspace envisioned by planners two decades ago, new construction has added more than 22,000 residential units and 2.4 million square feet of retail to Downtown Brooklyn since 2004.
Brooklyn labored under a stubborn inferiority complex
“The original intention was to grow the office sector, but in the 2000s, places like Hudson Yards in Manhattan were rezoned for commercial use, and competition for office space was citywide,” says Regina Myer, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a development non-profit that recently published an interactive map of the transformational building spree. “People realized Downtown Brooklyn had great connectivity to existing neighborhoods and to transit, and with new schools, parks, green spaces, and development of the cultural district it has become a walkable, engaging place to live.”
Still, what is a downtown without a skyline? Brooklyn may be well known for its stock of 19th century row houses and lauded as a hotbed of literary and culinary creativity, but its architecture had been lacking a suitably attitudinal 21st-century expression.
Brooklyn needed the Brooklyn Tower. A large part of New York City’s image as the self-described greatest city in the world stems from Manhattan’s defining skyline, wondrous even to jaded natives, while Brooklyn labored under a stubborn inferiority complex.
From here on, though, the Brooklyn Tower seems to say, ‘it’s all systems go’. We are not Topeka. We’re big, we’re bold, we’re badass, and we’re nobody’s kid brother.
Cara Greenberg is a design and travel writer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Architectural Record, Art & Antiques, Art & Auction, Brownstoner and Introspective. She has also authored several books about interior and furniture design, most notably Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s.
The photo is by Pavel Bendov.
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