Society
New York’s ‘Tower of Pisa’: 200-meter skyscraper left twisted in the middle of Manhattan
A luxury skyscraper dream in the heart of Manhattan has turned into a structural nightmare which is “shaped like a banana.”
In the heart of Manhattan, where real estate is among the most expensive in the world, a 670-foot skyscraper meant to redefine luxury living has been left abandoned. Tower 1 Seaport, an ambitious all-glass residential high-rise, was supposed to offer 60 stories of opulence overlooking the Financial District. But there was just one problem—the building started to tilt.
When construction had reached the 670-foot mark, developers noticed something alarming: “The slab edges on the north side of the building are misaligned by up to 8 inches.” That sentence marked the beginning of the end for this high-profile project by Fortis Property Group. What was meant to be a crown jewel in New York’s skyline quickly became a cautionary tale of engineering shortcuts and costly miscalculations.
A fatal flaw: the ground beneath 1 Seaport
Manhattan’s towering skyline is built on a foundation of solid bedrock, an ideal base for high-rise construction. Typically, skyscrapers rely on deep foundation pilings—steel supports drilled through layers of soil until they reach stable rock, usually around 15 meters below ground. But the plot for 1 Seaport, located on Maiden Lane, was anything but typical.
This area was originally designed by Dutch settlers in the 17th century, who extended Manhattan’s shoreline by dumping sand, stones, and even garbage into the river. As a result, the land beneath 1 Seaport is a patchwork of colonial-era landfill, remnants of shipwrecks, and decomposed marshland, sitting atop a layer of loose sand left by ancient glaciers. The crucial bedrock? A staggering 50 meters below the surface.
Cutting corners to save millions
Despite the challenging terrain, constructing a stable skyscraper was still possible—if done correctly. For over a century, New York’s tallest buildings have been anchored with deep steel pilings drilled into bedrock. But for reasons that remain tangled in ongoing lawsuits, Fortis Property Group chose a cheaper alternative: a technique called “soil improvement.” Instead of drilling to bedrock, they injected concrete into the soft soil to reinforce it. This decision reportedly saved the developers around $6 million.
However, veteran engineering consultant Robert Alperstein warned that this method could lead to “differential settlement,” meaning parts of the building might sink unevenly—leading to the tilting disaster that eventually unfolded. Meanwhile, nearby skyscrapers were all securely anchored with traditional steel pilings.
Ignoring the warnings—until it was too late
Rather than halting construction when the misalignment became evident, developers tried to compensate by adjusting the upper floors—building them slightly off-kilter in the opposite direction. “What happened was, as the building went up, the parties tried to pull it back and it kind of counterweighted,” explained a legal representative from Pizzarotti, the construction firm involved.
But the fixes didn’t work leaving it “shaped like a banana.” In July 2020, with lawsuits mounting and the structural issues unresolved, construction was halted indefinitely. Today, Tower 1 Seaport remains unfinished and abandoned, and is now under the management of real estate investor Richard Cohn, who specializes in handling neglected properties.
Original article written by Mario Espinosa de los Monteros, translated with the assistance of AI and edited by Greg Heilman.
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