Ep 249: An Almost Disaster - The Citigroup Center

About this episode

The episode discusses the near-disaster involving the Citigroup Center in NYC and its unique construction challenges.

Let's talk about the almost-disaster of The Citigroup Center - 601 Lexington Ave in NYC. This building was built on a lot that wasn't empty when they got there, and they made an objectively weird deal with a church on the corner: they would build their building over the church's footprint. This caused the building to be built on stilts - everything SEEMED ok until some people did some math & the right people were finally alerted. A huge (secret) retrofit was undertaken before the building destroyed the neighborhood. Taylor continues to not be able to believe she worked on the 38th floor of a NYC building for years.

People in this episode

Hosts: Taylor Pineiro, Farz Sokhansanj

Topics covered

• architecture
• urban planning
• disasters
• New York City
• history
• engineering

Keywords

• Citigroup Center
• NYC
• urban planning
• disaster
• architecture
• engineering
• building on stilts

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: church

Places: Citigroup Center, 601 Lexington Ave, NYC

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