After a decade of skyward expansion, even more skyscrapers are on the horizon in Manhattan.

A high-rise building boom, mostly of luxury condos, has transformed New York City’s skyline in recent years — and there’s more to come.

LOWER MANHATTAN: 1925
LOWER MANHATTAN: 1925 - In the 1920s, the tallest building in Lower Manhattan was the Woolworth Building. © Underwood Archives/Getty Images

There are currently nine completed towers in New York that are over 1,000 feet tall, and seven of them were built after 2007. Nearly twice that many — another 16 such towers — are being planned or are under construction, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a Chicago-based nonprofit that tracks high-rise construction. 

The scale of this new wave of construction is unprecedented.

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Why now?1 A confluence of factors, from advances in technology to a surge in luxury apartment speculation, has encouraged developers to build taller and leverage old zoning codes not designed for recent engineering breakthroughs. Some have called these zoning loopholes exploitive. New office towers like the ones that captured New York’s imagination a generation ago are also rising — although they now share the roost with multimillion-dollar condos.

  • 1. In a follow up article, Ryan Deffenbaugh examines five examples of skyscrapers that will leave a lasting mark on the city's skyline in the near future: Tower Fifth, Central Park Tower, 111 West 57th Street, JPMorgan Headquarters, and One Vanderbilt. via PlaNetiZen