NYC BIZ SPACE

Forget window shopping in New York City!  Look up!  Feast your eyes on the architectural beauty that adorns the skyline.  From Midtown to Downtown, from gothic to contemporary, the mix of styles is a joyous expression of art and sculpture. The Chrysler Building is an all-time favorite with that gorgeous art deco spire.  Did you realize there are actually gargoyles – in the shape of American Eagles – jutting out from the corners of the 61^st floor?   That’s what I love about New York – there’s always a surprise waiting!

Sitting in New York’s famous traffic gridlock provides another opportunity to look up and check out the architecture.  Try it someday and you just may notice a somewhat peculiar, yet very prevalent wooden structure on many of the buildings around you – New York City’s water tanks.

I originally thought they were just a quirky piece of history, sitting idle until they could be removed, but a few “Google queries” opened my eyes to their very necessary purpose.  Amid all the modern glass and steel skyscrapers, the cedar wood or redwood structures serve as a reminder that New York City does have some limitations!  In this case it’s water pressure.  New York City’s water mains can only withstand enough pressure to reach 6 floors.  As a result, all residential and commercial office buildings higher than 6 stories/80 feet are required to have a water tank.  Depending on the height of the building and number of occupants, multiple tanks may be required.  Pumps are used to propel water up into the tanks.  Gravity takes over for the downward trip when water is used at a fixture within the building or when needed for firefighting purposes.

Up on the Roof Report

New York’s wooden water tanks have been adorning rooftops since the 1800s.  The Rosenwach family has been constructing wooden water tanks in New York since 1896 when Harris Rosenwach, formerly employed by barrel maker William Dalton, bought Dalton’s business for $55.00!  Rosenwach tanks make up about 70% of the market share – that’s about 130,000 water tanks on New York’s rooftop!   And the company makes about 250 tanks every year.

Smaller tanks hold up to 5,000 gallons of water while larger tanks can hold as much as 30,000 gallons.   Potable water is pumped up from the water main in the street into these storage tanks. They take several hours to fill and because a new tank is not water tight, it will leak until the wood expands and swells sufficiently to create a water-tight seal.  The cost to build a cedar wood water tank ranges from about $25,000 to $45,000 and its life expectancy is about 30 years. 

The tan roof top with its distinctive “R” pinnacle is the trademark of a Rosenwach-built tank.  While all the wood is cut at the company’s location in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, the tank is not put together until it’s on the client’s rooftop.  There all individual  3” wood members are joined together by nothing more than galvanized steel hoops or, as I like to refer to them, “belly bands”.  The finished water tank provides natural insulation throughout the year – keeping the water cold in the summer and preventing freezing in the winter.

If you need to “get tanked” in New York City or just want to know a little bit more about our water tanks, check out WeTank NY.

Upcoming Projects

New Yorkers do love their plain, simple, iconic water tanks but starting next year about 300 of them will be decked out with original artistic designs depicting water.  The Water Tank Project, a 12-week spring/summer project sponsored by Word Above the Street, a non-profit organization focused on global water conservation and sustainability, will transform simplicity into wrap-around art.

The Neighborhood

What could be prettier than palm trees, water tanks, and a fabulous view of the Empire State Building?!  The 22,000 square foot rooftop bar atop 230 5^th Avenue provides it all after a hard day’s work brainstorming in Flatiron and Madison Square Park!  Check out the virtual tour and you’ll see what I mean!  And if you’re feeling just a bit chilly, grab a “red robe” from the closest rolling rack and wrap yourself up!  230 5^th Avenue, the former Victoria Hotel, is now known as the New York Market Center and is home to over 200 showrooms catering to a wide variety of products.

Madison Square Park and the Flatiron District are part of the Midtown South commercial real estate market where brisk leasing activity in the 1st quarter of 2012 has kept it running ahead of its 5-year average.  990,000 square feet of office space was leased during the quarter at an average asking rent of $48.79 per square foot.  This represents an 8% increase in rent since the 4^th quarter of 2011.  Midtown South has become a very popular destination for tech startup companies, in particular the Flatiron area.  Popularity does come with a price tag!  Average asking rents in Flatiron currently run at a 14% premium to Midtown South and were $55.62 per square foot at quarter end – up over 15% since just last year.  It seems everyone wants to call this area home!

Oh, just in case you’re wondering – like I did – where are the water towers on some of New York’s well-known skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building?  Here’s what I found:

 “…the 73^rd floor was nowhere to be seen—it was up another three steps, to the west, through an unmarked, locked door.  At this elevation, the Chrysler building tapers to 2,700 square feet.  The north side of the floor harbors a rectangular water tank, about the size of a comfortable houseboat.  It contains 15,000 gallons of water, 3,500 of which are kept in reserve in case of fire.”¹

New York is the coolest city in the world!  And the NYC Biz Space team is ready to help you find the coolest digs around.  Give us a call when you’re ready to make your next office space move. 

¹ David Michaelis; Inside the Needle:  The Chrysler Building Gets Lit

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