Oligarch’s Erection (432 Park Avenue)
The building called 432 Park Avenue, at 56th Street in Manhattan, was completed in 2015 and immediately became the tallest residential building in the world. The 432 Park Avenue building has had a number of nicknames. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker dubbed the building the “Oligarch’s Erection” in a July 13, 2015 podcast, and in an issue of The New Yorker dated October 5, 2015.
Another nickname for 432 Park Avenue is “Waffle Iron.”
Wikipedia: 432 Park Avenue
432 Park Avenue is a residential skyscraper in New York City that overlooks Central Park. Originally proposed to be 1,300 feet (396.2 meters) in 2011, the structure topped out at 1,396 ft (425.5 m). It was developed by CIM Group and features 125 condominium apartments. Construction began in 2012 and was completed on December 23, 2015.
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As completed, 432 Park Avenue is the third-tallest building in the United States and the tallest residential building in the world. It is the second-tallest building in New York City, behind One World Trade Center, and ahead of the Empire State Building. It is also the first, and so far only, building in New York City outside the World Trade Center Complex to be taller than the original twin towers.
Wikipedia: Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism since 1986 — and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife Martha, and son Luke spent in the French capital.
The New Yorker
Out Loud Podcast
The New New York City Skyline
With Amelia Lester and David Haglund July 13, 2015
12:00
ADAM GOPNIK: I always refer to it (432 Park Avenue—ed.) as the Oligarch’s Erection. You know, the one that’s going to be the tallest residential building and looks to me so purely priapic in this incredibly cold way it looks to me only like a runaway Russian oligarch lying prone in the middle of New York, excited at having gotten out of Moscow with all his money.
Twitter
Amir Beshay
@Amir_G_Beshay
From now, I will follow @adamgopnik’s example and start calling 432 Park Ave. “The Oligarch’s Erection”... Best name for it, really!
11:34 AM - 15 Jul 2015
Twitter
Anna Kordunsky
@AnnaKordunsky
“I always refer to it as the [Russian] oligarch’s erection”—Adam Gopnik on 432 Park Ave (~12m) http://www.newyorker.com/podcast/out-loud/the-new-new-york-city-skyline …
6:55 PM - 29 Jul 2015
The New Yorker
Books
October 5, 2015 Issue
NAKED CITIES
The death and life of urban America.
By Adam Gopnik
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The things that give cities a bad conscience are self-evident: seeing the rise of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest, ugliest, and among the most expensive private residences in the city’s history—the Oligarch’s Erection, as it should be known—as a catchment for the rich from which to look down on everyone else, it is hard not to feel that the civic virtues of commonality have been betrayed.
6sqft
New Yorker Book Review Calls 432 Park the Oligarch’s Erection
POSTED ON TUE, SEPTEMBER 29, 2015 BY DANA SCHULZ
“Cities can’t win. When they do well, people resent them as citadels of inequality; when they do badly, they are cesspools of hopelessness.” This is the opening line to Adam Gopnik‘s New Yorker review of three forthcoming urban history books: Gerard Koeppel’s “City on a Grid: How New York Became New York,” which tells the history of the city’s famous 1811 street grid plan and explores how that forever shaped life in the city; Evan Friss’ “The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s,” which recounts the rise and fall of bicycle culture in the late 19th century; and David Maraniss’ “Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story.” These very specific topics lend themselves to larger themes about the current state of our city, and in exploring these, Gopnik came out with an incredible one liner:
The things that give cities a bad conscience are self-evident: seeing the rise of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest, ugliest, and among the most expensive private residences in the city’s history—the Oligarch’s Erection, as it should be known—as a catchment for the rich from which to look down on everyone else, it is hard not to feel that the civic virtues of commonality have been betrayed.
Twitter
Evan Goldfine
@IsThisMyMoney
Replying to @felixsalmon @BCAppelbaum @DanielNMiller
432 Park Described by @adamgopnik: “the oligarch’s erection”
2:33 PM - 29 Jun 2017
HuffPost
POLITICS 06/28/2018 05:45 am ET Updated Jul 02, 2018
2 Percent Of New York City’s Buildings Emit Half Its CO2 Pollution. They’re Luxury Towers.
Properties owned by the families of President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner rank among the biggest contributors to the city’s carbon footprint.
By Alexander C. Kaufman
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he 90-floor tower nicknamed the “Oligarch’s Erection” is the gaudy centerpiece of Manhattan’s Billionaire’s Row ― a place where a corrupt Nigerian oil tycoon set a $51 million record for the biggest foreclosure in the city’s history in 2017 and a Silicon Valley tech mogul bought the most expensive home ever sold in New York for $100.5 million in 2018.