Manhattan media’s building boom

Posted by Jeffrey Blyth on 29 March 2006 at 12:33
Tags: United States

Just like Fleet Street a decade or so ago, the publishing scene in New York is physically changing. Entire offices are being moved.

Work is nearing completion on the new headquarters of the Hearst Corporation, a 46-storey glass and steel skyscraper designed by Sir Norman Foster and costing something like $500 million, which is going up on the site of the old Hearst offices close to Central Park and Columbus Circle.

One of the unusual and spectacular features of the new Hearst offices will be an indoor waterfall – the biggest private waterfall in the country, some claim – which will cascade at the rate of 15,000 gallons of water an hour over a 75 ft wide, 30 ft high glass wall in the building’s lobby.

The water will come from rain collected on the roof and recycled. There will be no wasted water, New Yorkers have been assured. The water will come from rain collected on the roof and recycled. There will be no wasted water, New Yorkers have been assured.

Meanwhile despite circulation and advertising woes, work is also progressing on a new headquarters for the New York Times — again a new skyscraper which will loom high over the West Side of the city.

The old Times building – close to Times Square and fronting onto the famous Shubert Alley - is being turned into apartments and shops. The ground-floor bays through which trucks delivered reels of newsprint and picked up papers all night from the basement presses will be converted to glass-fronted stores, a bookshop and possibly a restaurant.

The only publishing company in New York that doesn’t have big plans is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Despite being scattered in rented offices around the city, News Corp has rejected several overtures from companies eager to build a new headquarters for the Murdoch Empire, even though the city has made what it considers attractive tax-abatement offers.

Tags: United States