Look Up: Why the New York Times Headquarters Is the Best Building in NYC to Climb

Image via Complex Original

Although they’re actually triangles, the public plazas at the intersection of Broadway and the north-south avenues are all called squares. Perhaps the most famous of these is at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue: Times Square. Originally called Longacre Square, in 1904 the New York Times moved into the then newly erected Times Building and the plaza was officially renamed in its honor. However, less than ten years later, the Times moved west to a mid-block home at 229 West 43rd Street, leaving the old building mostly vacant. A hundred years after they moved into their first home in the area, the Times was again making plans to move, this time further even further west. 

In the mid-’80s private developers in conjunction with Mayors Koch and Dinkins began plans to revitalize the neighborhood. The Times Square Alliance, then known as the Times Square Business Improvement District, in conjunction with the Empire State Development Corporation, utilized eminent domain to radically transform (and expand) the neighborhood. As a result—though it is far outside the norms of technically being within the square—the latest home of the New York Times, at 620 Eighth Avenue, still belongs to the same vibrant neighborhood that is named after it.

The new New York Times Building was completed in 2007 for the cost of approximately $850 million on land that ESDC obtained through extending its rights to eminent domain. Forest City Ratner, known for its involvement with other controversial eminent domain exercises, is part owner, with the Times, of this building. 

The acclaimed Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, in cooperation with New York’s own FXFowle, designed the eco-friendly tower. Though it didn’t acquire, nor seek to obtain, the benchmark LEED certification, the tower incorporates numerous energy efficient elements.  A natural gas cogeneration plant provides over 40% of the buildings electricity, and the building harvests the waste heat from this process to run the heating and cooling systems. 

The most visible green element is the rows of ceramic rods that line the façade on the east, south and west. The glass curtain behind the rods is made of an ultra-clear low-iron glass that is coated with a membrane that minimizes the sun’s radiant energy, but allows for maximum natural light to deeply penetrate the interior. The ceramic rods provide an additional layer of screening protection, shielding the interior from the sun’s direct light while still allowing for maximum interior day-lighting. 

The rods have also served another unintended purpose and as a result minor modifications were made to their positioning near the street level. In the summer of 2008, on three different occasions, twice on the same day, three climbers used these rods to easily scale the façade as if they were climbing the rungs of a giant ladder. Most recently in March of this year a homeless man was the fourth to have been caught climbing the building. 

The glass curtain behind the rods is made of an ultra-clear low-iron glass.

If you climbed the giant ladder that is the building, this is what you would find.

The building ascends 1,046 feet.