- New York City’s skyline has changed dramatically in the past decade.
- One World Trade Center, completed in 2014, became the city’s tallest building at 1,776 feet.
- Hudson Yards, the city’s new $25 billion megadevelopment, has transformed Manhattan’s west side.
- New supertall skyscrapers have risen along the southern edge of Central Park on Billionaires’ Row.
- Parts of Brooklyn and Queens are also filling up with skyscrapers and starting to look more like Manhattan.
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The New York City skyline has dramatically transformed in the past decade.
For years, the skyline was defined by the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, both of which were built in the 1930s and stand over 1,000 feet tall, as Stefanos Chen wrote for The New York Times in 2019.
“But New York’s horizon has been in perpetual flux now for the better part of a decade,” Chen wrote.
In lower Manhattan, One World Trade Center was completed in 2014 and became the tallest building in the city. The island’s west side was also transformed by the new $25 billion megadevelopment Hudson Yards, which brought luxury residential skyscrapers selling condos as pricey as $59 million, office towers, and a massive shopping center to the area. And along the southern edge of Central Park, multiple supertall towers have risen into the clouds, vying for the best views of the park.
In Brooklyn, the borough's soon-to-be new tallest building is rising downtown. And in Queens, fast-growing neighborhoods like Long Island City have seen major changes.
Here's how the New York City skyline has changed in the past 10 years, in photos.
This is what the Manhattan skyline looked like from Weehawken, New Jersey, in 2010.
Today, the iconic Empire State Building still stands out, but numerous other skyscrapers have risen above it all along the island, altering the skyline.
In 2011, the view from 30 Rockefeller Center's observation deck, The Top of the Rock, showed One World Trade Center under construction in the distance in lower Manhattan.
Today, One World Trade Center, completed in 2014, is the tallest building in New York City. At 1,776 feet, it's easily visible from The Top of the Rock, towering over the other buildings in lower Manhattan.
Source: Business Insider
Looking in the other direction, the view of Central Park from The Top of the Rock was mostly unobstructed at the beginning of the decade.
Now, several supertall skyscrapers, including the new tallest residential building in the world, have risen along the southern edge of the park in an area now known as "Billionaires' Row."
Source: Business Insider
From Central Park in 2010, you could see stately luxury hotels, condos, and co-ops lining Central Park South.
Now, those buildings are dwarfed by the new towers, which include the world's skinniest skyscraper, One57, and Central Park Tower, which became the tallest residential building in the world in 2019 at 1,550 feet.
Source: Business Insider
At the start of the past decade, Manhattan's west side between 30th and 34th streets was home to only a few apartment buildings, office buildings, and the West Side Yard, where Long Island Rail Road trains were stored.
Source: Curbed
Today, the area is dominated by Hudson Yards, the city's new $25 megadevelopment of luxury condos, offices, entertainment, and shopping, which opened to the public in March 2019.
Source: Business Insider
In 2011, this was the view of the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn.
Since then, an 80-story luxury condo tower, One Manhattan Square, has risen behind the bridge.
In 2010, this was the view of lower Manhattan from New Jersey on September 11, when twin columns of light were projected into the sky in remembrance of the September 11 attacks.
Today, the lights are still projected every year on September 11, but the lower Manhattan skyline looks dramatically different after the completion of One World Trade Center and other skyscrapers in the area.
Brooklyn has not gone unchanged either. Here's what part of its skyline looked like In 2010.
Source: Business Insider, City Realty
Today, parts of Brooklyn have been filled in with skyscrapers, and the borough's skyline is starting to look more and more like Manhattan's.
Source: Business Insider
And in northern Brooklyn, areas like the Williamsburg waterfront have been rapidly changing. Earlier in the decade, the site of the Domino Sugar Factory sat abandoned and decrepit.
Source: Curbed
Today, the 11-acre area has undergone a massive redevelopment. The area has been transformed by a pristine new park and luxury condos.
Source: Curbed