In contrast to the 13-year controversy that surrounded the construction of the new World Trade Center – the tallest building in New York, the United States and indeed the western hemisphere – another skyscraper nearly as high has lately sprung up almost unnoticed.

It’s 432 Park Avenue, a plain, white modernist Lego-like column near Central Park whose roof (but not its spire) is actually taller than 1 WTC’s at 425.5m (1,396ft) and whose slimness was made possible by advances in engineering and by New York City regulations that allow developers to waive setback requirements – responsible for the wedding-cake design of skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building – if their structures occupy only a quarter of their lot. It is now one of only three buildings visible for much of the train journey to Newark or JFK airports, and viewed from Brooklyn or Queens it makes the glorious art deco Chrysler Building a few blocks south look like a bit of a titch.

But those setback requirements were introduced in 1916 to allow light and air into the ever-expanding canyon-like streets of Manhattan, and New Yorkers are starting to realize that many of these new “supertall” skyscrapers are casting significant and inescapable shadows – particularly over Central Park, that oasis of green space, sunlight and free recreation in an otherwise dense, overcrowded and expensive city. Already looming over the southern edge of the park as I joined thousands of others there last weekend for the first warm Saturday of the year was the 306m (1,000ft) One57 tower, a 90-storey residential building – and accompanying it by 2018 will be the Nordstrom Tower, a hotel and apartment block for the 0.0001% whose only nod towards civic-mindedness is its imperious and patronizing decision to top out at 541m (1,775ft), and thus avoid accusations of a lack of patriotism by allowing the World Trade Center to remain the US’s tallest building by a single foot.

New York has always built tall, of course, but the image of the super-rich literally casting a shadow over ordinary New Yorkers is a stark one at a time of discontent in the city over gentrification, affordable housing and the value of the minimum wage.

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One way of joining the super-rich – or at least observing them – was suggested to me the other day by a taxi driver who discovered I was an English immigrant (“Good luck learning the language!”). Turning almost 180 degrees in his seat as we bounced along a potholed Second Avenue, he advised me to take advantage of my colleagues as the summer heat approached: “Pretty soon, you’re gonna start hearing this word ‘Hamptons’,” he said. “Hamptons, Hamptons. As soon as you start hearing that word, you just start talking to them, find out when they’re going. Ask them about their summer house. You start talking enough, they’re going to invite you along.”

When we stopped outside my flat he unfolded a huge map of Long Island and talked me through the pros and cons of the various resorts along the shore. “I take my family to Fire Island,” he said, shrugging: “The gay area. It’s very safe.”

The next day I told a colleague the whole story, but she was quick to burst my bubble. “No one in this office has a summer home in the Hamptons.”

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A sign remembering Moises Ismael Locón Yac and Nicholas Figueroa at the place where they were killed by a gas explosion. Photograph: Paul Owen/The Guardian

Three weeks after I moved to New York, a building exploded at the end of my street. Two people, Moises Ismael Locón Yac, 27, a waiter in the Sushi Park restaurant where the gas explosion took place, and Nicholas Figueroa, 23, a customer there, were killed, and at least 19 were injured. Three buildings had to be demolished by the time the fire was extinguished, and this busy intersection in the bustling East Village was blocked off with emergency vehicles and removal trucks for two weeks afterwards. Patti Smith and other local luminaries played a benefit concert.

Now there is a huge gap where the buildings once stood, and the fence around it has become a shrine to the dead men. “We love you Nicholas RIP,” reads one. “My son ... I wear your ashes around my neck,” says another, almost unbearably.

Behind them windows that had stayed covered by their neighboring buildings for perhaps a century have suddenly emerged blinking into the light. An American flag has been flown from one of them; less expectedly, a skull and crossbones hangs from another. Through a Perspex panel in the fence two thin metal crosses can be seen in the expanse between the buildings, along with two small bunches of flowers, one white, one red. “East Village Strong” reads a poster on the Middle Collegiate church opposite.

It may be that one day fairly soon this slice of prime real estate will be occupied by a skyscraper like its companions near Central Park – if not quite as expensive or as tall – but for now the space has become a small area of solidarity and contemplation in a city better known for its individualism and unceasing, feverish activity.