New buildings in New York City: The coolest new structures coming in the next four years

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This was published 7 years ago

New buildings in New York City: The coolest new structures coming in the next four years

By Keith Austin
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New York might be the city that never sleeps but it's also the city that doesn't stand still for long. Ever changing, always challenging but never boring, the next few years are going to be significant for the Big Apple's skyline.

With a record 60.7 million people visiting the city in 2016 the need for more hotel rooms is being met by a building boom that will see the number rise from 112,000 in February this year to 137,000 by 2019. Among the new hotels opening in 2017 are the Moxy in May, SLS Park Avenue in spring and The Hoxton Brooklyn (an offshoot of the original Hoxton Hotel in East London's funky Shoreditch area) late in the year.

But that's the least of it. There are changes afoot to the High Line, plans for an underground Lowline and an observation wheel on Staten Island that will knock the London Eye into a cocked Cockney hat.

Here, then, are some of the things to look forward to in new New York:

2017

Gulliver's Gate (Times Square, Manhattan) will open on the ground floor of the former New York Times building in April. It will feature more than 300 miniature buildings and 1000 model train cars, including replicas of Times Square, Grand Central Terminal and parts of Lower Manhattan as well as the Middle East, Asia, Russia and Latin America (gulliversgate.com).

Opry City Stage (Times Square, Manhattan) will bring Nashville's Grand Ole Opry to the Big Apple. The four-storey complex will feature several music halls, a listening room, and a restaurant and lounge that pay homage to the stars that have performed at the original venue. Scheduled to open in April (oprycitystage.com).

2018

When it opens in mid-2018, the 36-capsule, 192-metre-tall New York Wheel near the St George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island will be the tallest observation wheel in the world. Round trip (geddit?) rides will take 38 minutes. Estimates say it will attract as many as 30,000 visitors a day (newyorkwheel.com).

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Inspired by the eclectic Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, the High Line Plinth – a new space dedicated to art – at Far West Side, Manhattan, is expected to open in 2018. The new area will feature major public art commissions and rotating exhibitions (art.thehighline.org).

The Hudson Yards – at five million square metres – is the largest private real estate development in the history of the US. When finished, it will include more than 100 shops and boutiques, 20 restaurants, 5000 residences, 5.6 hectares of public open space and a 150-room luxury hotel. Yes, it's a biggie. The first section opened in May last year. Upcoming in 2018 is Vessel, a 600-tonne permanent public art centrepiece that The New York Times called a $US150 million stairway to nowhere. The 15-storey construction will consist of 154 interconnecting flights of stairs, more than 2500 individual steps and 80 landings. The view from the top, if you make it that far, is predicted to be amazing (hudsonyardsnewyork.com).

2019

Not content with the Vessel in 2018 (see above) The Shed Far West Side will open in the Hudson Yards early this year. Dedicated to international and local displays of visual art, design, media and performances, the five-storey building will feature two column-free galleries, a theatre, event and rehearsal space, an artist lab, and a 5000-square-metre plaza for outdoor programming (theshed.org).

Also opening at Hudson Yards, The Observation Deck will – at 395 metres – be New York's highest outdoor observation deck, with river-to-river panoramic views of the skyline (hudsonyardsnewyork.com).

A new $US70 million Statue of Liberty Museum will open next to the iconic statue in 2019. Expect interactive displays, galleries and a theatre experience depicting the history of the statue (libertyellisfoundation.org).

Celebrity chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain will open his Bourdain Market at Pier 57 this year. The market will include about 100 retail and wholesale food vendors (bourdainmarket.com).

2020

When One Vanderbilt building debuts in 2020 it will top out at 427 metres and include an indoor-outdoor observation deck at 335 metres above street level. Visitors will be able to access the deck via a direct entrance inside Grand Central Terminal, which the building will straddle (onevanderbilt.com).

2021

It's a way away but when the 18,000-square-metre Lowline opens on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 2021 it will be the world's first underground park and will use solar technology to transmit sunlight into the park for plant growth (thelowline.org). An experimental underground lab – the Lowline Lab – testing the technology closed in February, sadly.

See also: The best of New York on a budget

See also: The 10 great New York highlights most visitors miss

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