The Spiral at 66 Hudson Boulevard Nearly One-Third of The Way Up in Hudson Yards

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

Construction on Bjarke Ingels Group‘s 66 Hudson Boulevard, aka The Spiral, is around one-third of its full architectural height. The massive $3.7 billion Hudson Yards supertall is being built directly across the street to the north of Foster + Partners‘ 50 Hudson Yards, which has been rising neck and neck with BIG’s 66-story design throughout most of 2020. Tishman Speyer is the developer, Turner Construction Company is the construction manager, and Banker Steel is in charge of manufacturing the steel for the 1,031-foot-tall skyscraper.

Recent photos from street level and from across the Hudson River show The Spiral’s growing presence on the skyline. When topped out, the structure’s roof will eclipse 35 Hudson Yards by a mere 21 feet. At the moment, the thick reinforced concrete core of 50 Hudson Yards has a slight lead on The Spiral, though its assembly of floors is slightly behind.

The Spiral rising to the north of Hudson Yards. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral (left) and 50 Hudson Yards (right). Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral (left) and 50 Hudson Yards (right). Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral (left) and 50 Hudson Yards (right). Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The diagonal columns that transfer the loads of the skyscraper below and above the cascading setbacks are becoming more apparent as the white fireproofing spray is applied to all of the steel components. These structural elements will eventually be covered by a glass envelope. Installation of the panels has been on hold for the past several months and Permasteelisa, the contractor for the curtain wall of The Spiral, will resume work in a couple of weeks.

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

The Spiral. Photo by Michael Young

Future office occupants will be able to step out onto the landscaped terraces, which will feature tall trees and shrubbery, for views of the Vessel, the Hudson River, the Empire State Building, and the supertalls along Billionaires’ Row.

The Spiral is estimated to be finished sometime in 2022.

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15 Comments on "The Spiral at 66 Hudson Boulevard Nearly One-Third of The Way Up in Hudson Yards"

  1. Statistically, I imagine that 50 Hudson Yards will top out first, mainly because it’s based on a concrete core that can move vertically pretty quickly.
    Honestly, I think The Spiral is a warm welcome to the New York City and will be a icon of the City for a long time, mainly due to its spiral of landscaping.

  2. “The glass envelope oddly hasn’t budged for the past several months”
    You are puzzled by this?
    Seriously?

    • Every construction site progresses differently at their own pace. Should calm down and tone down your attitude Monath

      • Because if Coronavirus, construction of those glass panels very likely completely shut down over the last few months..

  3. Howard Miller | June 22, 2020 at 12:16 pm | Reply

    While The Via & XI gave reason to believe Bjarke Ingels Group’s biggest & most prominent building to date in NYC, The Spiral at 66 Hudson Boulevard, would be every bit as, if not even more spectacular as those other 2 efforts are, and would finally offer the desperately needed “WOW!” factor that’s missing at that forest of spectacular super tall mediocrity otherwise known as Hudson Yards, as someone who lives nearby & sees the building rise almost in real time, it pains me to say this, but from what’s been seen thus far in actuality without filtering or snapping pics at the precise, fleeting moment when the skies are picture postcard deep blue, and the sun allows for a shimmering of the glass curtain wall that I have yet to see in person shown in the series of pics with this blog post, this building is well on its way to being every bit as overly massed, cold, impersonal, imposing & super **FUGLY** as all of the other super tall boring, banal, insipid, overly massed, super FUGLY office buildings seen to date at Hudson Yards.

    Sorry, not sorry – but I was so hoping The Spiral would represent a turning point that would finally overcome the blight at Hudson Yards for ALL of the super tall office buildings to date where the developers have benefitted so richly from the $6 billion taxpayer funded subsidy The NY TImes reported as the estimated value of government “incentives” (translation: CORPORATE WELFARE/CORPORATE SOCIALISM, etc.) provided for the building of Hudson Yards.

    Sadly, this does NOT appear to be the case as The Spiral at 66 Hudson Yards is well on its way now towards becoming just another ginormous office building with spectacularly mediocre architecture instead of a 21st century, skyline defining, iconic building say the way 30 Rock, The Chrysler & Empire State Buildings were/are for their era; Lever House or The Seagram’s Buildings were/are for theirs; Citicorp Building was/is for its era; or The AT&T/Sony Building was/is for its era.

    It’s just NOT.

    And given the brilliance of The Via, or the dazzle dazzle of The XI, the looming monstrosity of another ho-hum, overly massed super tall poisoning NYC’s formerly majestic & iconic skyline while so many cities around the world ARE building gorgeous super talls that put anything seen built to date at Hudson Yards to shame, is truly disappointing – that’s all the more of a heartbreak given the many other extraordinarily brilliant buildings Bjarke Ingels Group has to its credit here in NYC & around the world. ?

    Oh, well, maybe one of these days Hudson Yards will get its own iconic, skyline defining super tall along the lines of a 30 Rock, a Chrysler, an Empire State, a Lever House or a Seagram’s building – but it sure isn’t going to be this one that accomplishes that.

    Talk about a missed opportunity…

  4. Howard Miller | June 22, 2020 at 12:48 pm | Reply

    1.) That’s “razzle dazzle” in the above; NOT “dazzle dazzle” as auto correct changed it to.

    2.) To clarify: for the $6 billion of taxpayer funded subsidies NYC deserves buildings far better looking than the overly massed, but incredibly **FUGLY** super talls built to date at Hudson Yards.

    Sheesh! If this is the best NYC can do, then why even bother anymore.

    Heck, with these SUPER FUGLY super talls, we’d be better off either having left the area underdeveloped with the exposed LIRR storage Yards; used the space to expand the Javitscenter to be as large as McCormick Place in Chicago or the Las Vegas Convention Center so NYC could at least compete for the biggest trade shows & conventions (after the current Covid19 pandemic is behind us, of course) instead of the half-baked expansion that helps, but still leaves NYC far behind Chicago & Las Vegas for the biggest, headline making trade shows & conventions; or even having built the domed stadium for the NY Jets to play their home games since the notion of traffic jams overwhelming the nearby neighborhoods on a handful of Sunday’s plus however many nighttime games and/or pre-/post- season football games surely cannot be taken seriously when compared to the traffic jams that will be a daily occurrence once all of the ginormous (but, alas to date, spectacularly FUGLY) super tall office buildings, the current half-baked Javitscenter expansion, hotels & residential buildings are completed what with just the crosstown 7 train line being the only meaningful mass transit link to a part of the city that even before the 1st office buildings at Hudson Yards opened, long ago was a traffic choked part of Manhattan owing to the ramps for the Lincoln Tunnel.

    I mean, seriously, whoever was paid off by the real estate interests to kill Bloomberg’s vision of bringing the Summer Olympics to NYC & then leaving a domed stadium for the NY Jets to make their home thereafter by scaring the crap out of residents of Chelsea & Hell’s Kitchen with tall tales about being trapped in their homes, or unable to get to their homes on game days as suburbanites invaded the streets with Sunday afternoons of absolute gridlock, impossible to find street parking, or piss drunk rowdy fans pissing in their doorways sure did a great job lying their butts off – because the density of development at Hudson Yards now certainly will easily eclipse the volume of people & vehicles that Bloomberg’s West Side Stadium would’ve brought to the neighborhood instead.

    So, these developers got a LOT from the City (as in RESIDENTS & TAXPAYERS) & yet, even with their bountiful corporate welfare that they’re building such spectacularly over massed, yet incredibly FUGLY buildings is disgusting.

    NYC deserves better than these super FUGLY super talls after having given so much away to these developers.

    That much is for sure.

  5. Will be anxious to see this one on next trip to NYC, but having trouble seeing the “spiral” part of tower? All I see are “collapsing” columns, which have an erie 9/11 look to them!! ?

    As for Howard’s long winded “comments”… can someone provide
    a “Cliff Note” version? ?

  6. So many “blah” new buildings.. Not to mention the fact that they’re just going to sit there empty.

  7. Where is 66 Hudson Boulevard? Most of us know Manhattan in terms of streets, not new “boulevards”.

  8. Why are there no supertall spiraling towers with interesting roof lines in NYC. All i see are boring tall boxes with flat roofs

  9. The “landscaping” will no doubt never come to pass. Once again, where’s #2 WTC?

    • Where’s #2 WTC? My question too. When they were building both 1 and 4WTC, I wished they were constructing 2WTC instead of the much-shorter (and farther) 4WTC. Because they didnt, we now have this seemingly permanent gap between 1 and 3WTC, where 2WTC is supposed to be.

  10. Thisbuilding is like the dope we bought a hells kitchen building in the 70s. U made out pretty well. These buildings will be shaped by the city. But their built.

  11. Poor Howard , I feel your pain .
    Don’t end it all, but if you do…..take a swan dive off of 66

  12. Michael D. Skelly | July 2, 2020 at 5:49 pm | Reply

    No one is in any mood to drop 23 mill for an apt. and if any one has not notice the office and retail markets are off by 70 per cent, no pre buys, sales, sales, sales, is the only thing that can save another Hudson Yards Folly

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