Trending
This month in RE history: City Club of NY reprints anti-skyscraper article
From the December issue: The City Club of New York reprinted 87 years ago this month a Vanity Fair article that blasted skyscrapers as “monsters” that would lead to the “decline and ultimate death of New York City.” Deems Taylor, a composer and music critic, compared skyscrapers to a plague on the level of “ancient city scourges” like “cholera, yellow fever, tuberculosis and slums.”
He was especially concerned about sidewalk congestion and traffic jams, which he blamed on the ever-increasing density caused by new skyscrapers like the 625-foot-tall Chanin Building. [more]