A Tower on Billionaires' Row Is Full of Cracks. Who's to Blame?

Summary

With its striking white concrete facade amid a sea of glass skyscrapers, the supertall tower at 432 Park Avenue was designed to be the jewel of New York City’s Billionaires’ Row, the stretch of luxury condos in Manhattan that has attracted the world’s wealthiest home buyers.But only a few years after the 102-floor apartment tower near 57th Street was completed, water began seeping through some ceilings, the elevators broke down repeatedly and owners complained that their living rooms creaked and swayed in the whipping Midtown wind.Now, what initially seemed to be nuisances for a small group of ultrarich people appear to have masked much deeper problems.The exterior of the building, which opened in 2015, is pockmarked and gouged, riddled with hundreds of cracks that suggest the slender structure is being overtaxed by wind and rain, according to independent engineering experts, construction reports and court filings. If the problems are not addressed, probably with a nine-figure renovation, the building could eventually become uninhabitable or endanger pedestrians below, the engineers said.Inspectors have said the building is safe for the residents inside and for passers-by. Yet recent reports filed with the city have shown chunks of missing concrete on some of its highest floors, and new cracks are appearing in its load-bearing facade.Amid a tangle of litigation involving the developers, engineers, residents and a small army of contractors, a likely explanation for some of the building’s issues is emerging: its lauded, all-white concrete facade, insisted on by its superstar team of architects and developers.More than a decade after the city’s skyline was reshaped in a race to build the tallest trophy home, the tower at 432 Park could represent the limits of new skyscraper technology and the frothy condo market that encouraged it.The New York Times reviewed thousands of pages of court documents, public records and private correspondence between the buildings’ resident...