Name: Why New York's Skyline Has a Distinct Look
Uploaded: 2018-10-07T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 4 min 22 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In a city packed with iconic skyscrapers,

was once considered so obscenely large that it led

to the first major zoning law in the United States.

When it was completed in 1915, the Equitable Building

was the largest office building in the world,

The building had one problem: it was too big.

Designed to maximize rentable office space,

When it was built, New Yorkers were in an uproar

Neighbors complained of the enormous shadow

Meanwhile, developers worried that a glut

restricting the size or height of office buildings.

But as new technology was pushing skyscrapers

like the Equitable Building to unprecedented scale,

the outcry for regulation reached a breaking point.

effectively made skyscrapers like the Equitable Building

It was called the 1916 Zoning Resolution,

and it was the first comprehensive zoning law

didn't directly cause the 1916 Zoning Resolution.

in a debate that had been heating up for years

as new technology made skyscrapers bigger and bigger.

Instead of enacting a fixed height limit,

the drafters of the resolution developed an ingenious plan

based on something called a setback principle.

Depending on the district, a building's height

could not exceed a certain ratio to the width of the street.

A building could gain extra height, however,

In a 1 1/2 district a building could rise another three feet

for each foot that it was set back from the street.

Furthermore, in any district, 25% of the lot

architects began to creatively conform designs

and tapering off in steps as it rose in height.

making New York's dense streets seem more open,

The Zoning Resolution went beyond height limits too.

It also set rules for how land could be used

Around the same time, other American cities

By the 1960s, New York had grown significantly,

now a historic landmark and undergoing a major renovation,

one whose excesses led to New York's iconic skyline,

which you'll never look at the same way again.

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Why New York's Skyline Has a Distinct Look

ultimate

enormous

debate

iconic