The New York Times Building

Profile

At 52 stories, the New York Times Company's glass-and-steel contribution to the midtown skyline towers over its Hell's Kitchen neighbors. Completed in November 2007 and situated across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority, the building is the Gray Lady's third home in the district that now bears its name. The brainchild of Italian designer Renzo Piano and FXFOWLE Architects, the tower boasts an exterior curtain of thousands of ceramic rods that serve as sunshades to deflect heat. In a nod to its main tenant�the Times, which takes up floors two through 27�these rows of gray rods also lend the tower the appearance of a giant news column, while the large glass windows were selected to connote the paper's commitment to journalistic transparency. Constructed with "green" features�it maximizes the use of natural light, and its own energy plant uses clean-burning gas�the site also houses a public, climate-controlled birch-and-moss garden on the ground floor. Also open to the public are the lobby's Moveable Type art installation, which celebrates the Paper of Record's past and present, as well as TheTimesCenter, a 378-seat auditorium for lectures, plays, and musical performances. — Alina Soler

The curtain of rods on the building’s facade originally extended all the way to the ground floor, but dozens were removed in July 2008 after three climbers in five weeks used the rods as a ladder to scale the tower.