In the News
SEAoNY, The Awards Issue
June 15, 2014On a recent spring afternoon, I walked through midtown Manhattan enjoying the beautiful weather and admiring all of the impressive buildings that we structural engineers have designed. Reminded of my own start in New York and anticipating this awards issue of Cross Sections, it became an obvious opportunity to share a personal story that gets at the heart of what an organization like SEAoNY is about.
When I first moved to New York in 1990, fresh out of college, I had quite a different perspective than I do today. I was all dreams, desire, and confidence. Maybe I never articulated my ambitions clearly, but truthfully I wanted to literally be everything to the structural engineering profession. My goal was to design every building, draw every detail, obtain every commission, formulate every innovation, and attain every recognition.
Optimizing Light and Space in the Big City
April 15, 2014At eight stories high and comprised of reinforced concrete flat plate construction (concrete slab without beams), the residential building at 653 Tenth Avenue in New York City boasts distinct features that make this building more than the average ‘flat plate’. These include a column free corner with cantilevers of up to 20 feet long and a large amount of exposed reinforced concrete structure, both of which were achieved with a structural slab of no more than 8 inches thick on the interior of the space.
Theater on the Roof
January 14, 2013Lincoln Center (LCT) in New York has long been associated with big productions. But it serves as a showcase for lesser-known artists as well, as indicated by LCT3, a program of scaled-down productions and emerging talent.
In searching for a permanent home for LCT3’s growing audience, the theater realized the need to expand its capacity within the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) campus and add a small, intimate theater to serve LCT3’s needs. (more…)
It Takes a Village
July 14, 2012What is “SMART” Development? There are several answers to that question, but perhaps one of the most intuitive ones is development that is centered around or in close proximity to mass transit. Such development is the goal of the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Smart Growth initiative. In pursuing this goal for the town of New Brunswick, N.J., the New Brunswick Development Corp (DEVCO) created a mixed-use structure that would become a new epicenter for transit in the area, and in the process help revitalize the town center itself. The project, the New Brunswick Gateway Transit Village (NBGTV), is a 632,000-sq.-ft, 300-ft-tall, mixed-use building that features parking, rental apartments, condominiums, office space and retail space.
New Brunswick Gateway Transit Village
March 2, 2012By J. Benjamin Alper, P.E., Cawsie Jijina, P.E., SECB and Fortunato Orlando, P.E.
The New Brunswick Gateway Transit Village (NBGTV) is situated adjacent to the commuter rail train station in New Brunswick, NJ. At 300+ feet tall, NBGTV is currently the tallest building in the city. The building consists of 632,000 square feet of mixed used space which includes parking, retail, office and residential uses. The podium structure of the building consists of a precast parking garage, with areas of concrete and metal deck on structural steel framing wrapping around the garage. Rising above the ten story podium is a fourteen story precast plank on structural steel framed residential tower. All of this is supported by deep continuous cast-in-place concrete footings.
Growing in Manhattan
October 14, 2008Traders are already at work at Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, the new headquarters for Bank of America’s New York City operations, which will be completed in 2009. When the steel for the architectural spire topped out at 1,200 ft this past December, it completed the structural work for 2.1 million sq. ft of office space spread vertically over 55 stories. At the lower end of things, the new skyscraper also includes three cellar levels, an underground pedestrian passage, and a restored Broadway theater. To make all of this come together, an equally sizeable effort by the project team was needed, especially for the structural steel design. (more…)
Take Off at JFK and Newark International Airports
April 14, 2001The steel framed parking garages constructed and planned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are a significant part of the multibillion dollar capital redevelopment programs at JFK International Airport in Queens, NY, and at Newark International Airport, NJ. The recently constructed 1,800 parking space Green Garage at JFK International Airport and the 3,300 parking space Lot E Garage under construction at Newark International Airport, designed and constructed by the Port Authority, meet the dramatic increases in passengers at the airports. (more…)