As the tallest skyscraper in Hudson Yards and the 4th-tallest under construction in New York City, 30 Hudson Yards makes a notable impact on the Midtown skyline with its impressive height and prominent crown. The 1,296-foot-tall office building stands 73 stories above 10th Avenue and West 33rd Street, and will soon open its doors for business. Its observation deck will be the highest in New York, and that component will also contain an extruded outdoor viewing platform. Kohn Pedersen Fox is the architect, while Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group are the developers of the tower, part of the first phase of Hudson Yards.

The building topped-out this past summer. Since then, the glass facade has reached the parapet, the blue construction crane has been disassembled, the tall glass panels that surround the observation deck perimeter have mostly fallen into place, and work on the ground floor is also progressing towards next year’s grand opening. With 2.6 million square feet of space, 30 Hudson Yards is one of the largest commercial office buildings in New York.

The most anticipated aspect of the project is the cantilevering observation deck, dubbed, “The Deck.” This component, designed in collaboration with schlaich bergermann partner, features a partial glass floor cut in a triangular-shaped void looking down the sloped eastern facade and 10th Avenue, more than 1,000 feet below. A 10,000-square foot restaurant, bar, and event space will be managed by Rhubarb hospitality group.

Up until the late 2000s, the Midtown skyline’s focal points were limited to the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Citicorp Building, and Rockefeller Center. They all sat relatively isolated from one another among a wide expanse of flat roofs and large, boxy office buildings that had dominated the neighborhood since the latter half of the twentieth century.

Now that 2018 has wrapped, 30 Hudson Yards and the rest of the project’s first phase have forever altered the nature of the the skyline along 34th Street in terms of height and architecture. Although the view of the Empire State Building has been partially lost when looking on axis from New Jersey, Hudson Yards has become a new mountaintop amongst the plateau of flat roofs between it and the supertalls along 57th Street. 30 Hudson Yards and its surrounding cluster have also become a focal point when looking north from Jersey City or Lower Manhattan.

The rezoning that birthed Related’s railyard-topping towers has also been a catalyst for new skyscrapers and complexes including Manhattan West, 3 Hudson Boulevard, The Spiral by Bjarke Ingels Group, and a number of new hotels and residential projects that follow the length of the High Line.

30 Hudson Yards and the observation deck will open next year, along with nearly every single building in the first phase except 50 Hudson Yards. That will most likely open in 2022, and be the last completed project in Phase I. Phase II will be a mix of residential buildings, retail, and office buildings, as well as additional landscaped parks and greenery.

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