6 Green Skyscrapers in New York City! (Part 1)

From passive house brownstones to LEED-seeking public libraries, New York City is full of green buildings. As private residences or nondescript offices, most of our city's sustainable buildings go unnoticed by tourists and New Yorkers alike, but that doesn't mean our skyline is devoid of green. In fact, our cityscape is dotted with more eco skyscrapers than you probably realize. The Empire State Building, the New York Times Building, and the in-progress One World Trade Center are just a few of the sustainably-built Big Apple towers.

Bank of America Building (One Bryant Park)

The most sustainable skyscraper in New York City, the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park is LEED Platinum certified, and it was the first tower in the world designed to achieve that rating. Designed by Cook+Fox Architects and built by Tishman Construction Corporation, the building features a long list of sustainable and energy-efficient elements. Quite uncommon for a tower of its size, the building, completed in 2009, employs a system for rainwater catchement and reuse, greywater recycling, energy efficient building systems, and high performance glass which maximizes day-lighting and minimizes solar heat gain and loss. But it’s most innovative feature is the state-of-the-art, onsite 4.6-megawatt cogeneration plant that provides clean energy for the building, significantly reducing it’s dependance on the NYC grid.

Empire State Building

Just last fall, New York City’s most iconic building received LEED Gold certification. After undergoing a massive $100 million green upgrade (part of a larger $550 million renovation), the Empire State Building is now one of the Big Apple’s greenest buildings. The retrofit included replacing the 80-year-old building’s windows with double hung operable windows and installing an energy efficient heating and cooling system, which will help cut the building’s energy consumption by more than 38 percent and should save $4.4 million in energy costs. On top of this, eco practices, like green cleaning and recycling programs, have been implemented throughout the building.

Hearst Building

Having received its LEED Gold certification upon completion in 2006, the Hearst Tower was New York City’s very first green skyscraper. Designed and built by Foster + Partners, the striking 46-story blue tower sits atop the original stone base that was finished in 1926. During construction, nearly 85 percent of the materials removed from the building were recycled for future use, and the tower uses 26 percent less energy than a traditionally designed building. A rainwater collection system on the roof annually diverts 1.7 million gallons of water from becoming runoff waste, and the lighting is controlled by sensors, automatically adjusting to the amount of daylight. A whopping 90 percent of the structural steel used in the tower is recycled, and the diagonal-grid structural design improves efficiency.