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6:20 has to be the greatest moustache ever to appear on the B1M

We need a top 5 most leaning towers. There are actually many lesser known out there.

Lived near if for the past 9 years and kept wondering why it never has been completed yet. Thanks for shedding light on the leaning tower of New York

the fact that its so tall on such a tiny footprint would scare the crap out of me living in there

The glaring explanation is in the history books: the Lower East Side of downtown Manhattan along the waterfront is all landfill from over 200-ish years ago. The Manhattan granite bedrock is there, but it's deeper than just a few blocks inland. As NYC population grew, they started using landfill to expand before they started to move developments north on the island. The lean is almost 100% the result of them not using pilings in the foundation and instead trying to create strong enough soil out of old landfill. VERY expensive lesson!

Frankly I'm stunned that they were approved to use soil treatment for foundations so close to the waterfront - large parts of Manhattan go underwater when there's a storm surge, and there's a lot of subsurface infrastructure all over the island. Not using pilings is pure insanity.

The statement from the contractor (7:17) that "The details of the foundation system were never provided to Pizzarotti". Who starts a multi-million dollar project without knowing how a major part is going to be built?

I think people often think that skyscrapers are a perfect science because they go up all the time unhindered, but this is an important reminder that it’s extremely challenging to get 60 stories of concrete and metal to stand perfectly straight, and is a massive achievement by developers. It’s just unfortunate that when a lean like this occurs, it’s so expensive to correct.

Loved it! Thanks Christine, Fred and the B1M squad for having me on. I think this tower is in for a lot more twists and turns.

I see this from my office every morning, I thought it was a weird design choice. This part of downtown is all landfill in the river! You have to use piles, soil treatment/grout/etc, won’t work! (Solid ground is several blocks inland, the landfilling started all the way back when the Dutch were here.)

As a builder I never never ever cut corners on the foundation. That is the single most important thing period . If you want to cut corners put in cheap cabinets or floor covers . Something easily fixed .

It’s cool to see videos like this as a soil and concrete inspector! Great video!

As much as I DESPISE that building I do want a solution to be found. It’s been looking unfinished for awhile now and it’s embarrassing it’s being dragged out.

I work for a piling specialist in the UK. Can confirm, foundations are hard. Love the videos! 👌

This skyscraper hasn’t changed for like 4 years at this point. The developers must be taking notes from the GTA V school of skyscraper construction

Its genuinely terrifying that Fortess could just be lying about the scale of the problem

I can’t even imagine living in a city that dense. It looks horrendous

We actually have the same symtom with a building here in Copenhagen. It was due to a concrete foundation made of poor quality concrete. So now we have a tall building with some windows and a lot of open fronts.

All of these super tall buildings are just insanity.

6:15 i hope you told Saaed what a magnificent mustache he has. Truly a work of art

I feel like your tone was a little off when describing the death of a worker as a "string of bad luck" for the development. I would be a lot more scathing of a development that allows that to happen.

I want to get me some of that “lovely, strong bedrock”. It sounds like a great foundation

I remember being in the city and seeing this unfinished tower way back in 2018...so its been a VERY long time since anything has happened.

A lot of lower Manhattan is landfill with no structural bearing capacity. In those cases, If you don't have foundations resting on bedrock, then you're probably building a disaster. Just ask the guys who developed Millenium Tower in San Francisco.

The building's super structure also has an eccentric layout of core walls, which might cause differential shortening and leaning of the building to the direction of more shortening. All you have to do is investigate the shape of leaning because it is different whether the leaning comes from differential foundation settlement or from differential shortening.

This is what I call justice. I am from NY.C., and (like many other people) I am sick of the over-building and ugly character-less glass boxes that are ruining our skyline. This is far from the only glass tower that has serious issues. We are on a seafront, of course these types of buildings are inappropriate.

Yo B1M - not just the vertical weight has to be borne by the foundation, but wind loads, seismic loads, etc., are also transferred to the foundation. I've had to argue with structural engineers in California about door openings in a house - imagine how that plays on a 60 story building.

If you look up the history of the World Trade Center complex in lower Manhattan you would see that the whole area is basically reclaimed land from the Hudson River. The tallest building in the city sits on reclaimed land. Of course the building of the WTC complex they had to construct a retaining wall first to keep out the Hudson River and pile drive deep into bedrock.

"A simple redesign of the glass facade." If that does not scream "i'm guilty" i don't know what does.

I'm surprised you didn't go with the title of Leaning Tower of Pizzarotti

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shortly after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Houses were built to standards that no longer exist because of expense. Our 1,700sqft one story has roughly 60 six foot deep 2’ wide concrete piers that the subfloor sit on top of. Giving a small crawl space to access plumbing and systems. Now all new homes in our area on a poured slab.

Another masterpiece production. Thanks!

Despite knowing it is a knowable number, the idea of the “weight of a skyscraper” is mind-blowing.

Many of the floors in NYC's Freedom Tower in are completely out of level. It is standard procedure to bring in floor leveling contractors to correct the situation. One of the floors I worked on in the 80's part part of the stack was out of level by 3" across the entire structure. Big problem is the workers have no real supervision and no accountability. Buildings only get this messed up when a lot of people are not doing their jobs and looking the other way.

Today I learned the technical building industry term 'lovely strong bed rock'.

How did the city of NY allow it? Something like this would have had to be approved by various NYC building departments.

The problem is even more basic than a broken foundation, it is greed...which means that this kind of thing will happen forever...

Wow, I thought that of all cities, NYC would avoid this situation.

For you WW2 history buffs out there, an interesting fact about FDR Drive is that it was made with the crushed rubble from the bombed city of Bristol. Every time a US Liberty ship returned from England, they used crushed brick and concrete as ballast for the return trip. Bristol was heavily bombed during WW2 and a lot of the rubble now lies under FDR Drive. If you want to know the full story, search UKposts - Mark Felton Productions - The Bombed British City Beneath New York. Also, you wouldn't get me living in such a narrow sky scrapper as this one. It looks like it would fall over in a strong wind, even if it was straight to begin with!

The city should consider requiring a completion bond in future from any developer before breaking ground on any such possible eyesore of this prominence.

😳 How you transitioned into a commercial from your sponsor and back during the video is both astounding and astonishing! 😆

I love these videos! The content, the production quality!

I read before that New York has a limited amount of space where larger, taller buildings can be built due to much of the land being reclaimed and not with solid ground underneath but with stuff like landfill and old boats. I think I read about this when I was looking up why they demolished the beautiful huge hotel built by Astor after he perished in HMS Titanic. Such a huge luxurious building demolished after something like 40-50 years because the skyscrapers need the land with the solid rock deep below the foundations.

Top notch as usual 👍

The sewers, drains and water mains, that is, any leaks or sources of subsurface erosion could undermine the foundation causing the lean. Not easy to check.

We also have a leaning church tower in our Cheshire village of Wybunbury. It was partially uprighted by the same engineer who done the leaning tower of Pisa.

New subscriber here. I'm loving these videos on NYC. Very interesting stuff!

I'm REALLY surprised that all the skyscrapers don't have pilings in NYC. This one definitely should have, in my opinion. 😬

If you ever go up the CN Tower during any decent weather just lean against a wall. It's really trippy.

That tower is elevated so much good modernization Engineering Project

Thats my biggest nightmare, spending millions on a defective building

designed by hill west, i remember this project when i was working there 🙂

Only B1M can make Infrastructure video look cool😅

I just love this channel!

7:13 what's with the blur on the left? Was the text supposed to pop out or something?

It's nuts to build a skyscraper with such a ridiculous height to width ratio. Living in that would be like living at the top of a bamboo plant in the wind!

😱 " WHAT THE HELL WERE THE DEVELOPERS THINKING?.... Apparently, They didn't learn from ' The Leaning Tower of San Francisco ' boondoggle? I wouldn't go within a block of either one, until they're demolished. "

This one of the best channels on YT. This has to be a top episode…I walk by this once a week 😮

Even without the lean, I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in such a tall, skinny building. I mean, sure, the salespeople could have engineers on standby to educate potential buyers about its safety, but you really shouldn't need that. Frankly, the only point of even trying to keep it going, now, would be for it to be another empty, money-laundering building - which I suspect was the purpose from the start.

I believe much of the land at the rivers edge is fill dirt , probably a hundred years ago. In order to put up a structure that tall safely one must install pylons which connect to solid bedrock. Lots of luck with fixing this monstrous mistake.

I just wanted to say how much I enjoy this channel. Aloha from the island of kaua'i

Marketing it as the Leaning Tower of Manhattan will be a great idea. People will love to own such a condo

I never really understand how anyone can decide to cut corners when building a skyscraper. I mean, it's not like it's going to go unnoticed...

The leaning was caused by GREED.

Right on. Thanks for sharing.

The idea that you can chemically treat a soil, especially on a riverbank, and then build a massive skyscraper on top of it, is ridiculous. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or an engineer, or architect, to see that. I'm schocked and horrified that the City would approve such a plan. Pilings, pilings, pilings, into bedrock, is the ONLY foundation that should be allowed for skyscrapers, ESPECIALLY on a waterfront. But, I guess they won't learn that lesson until one comes down. Only then will they look back, in hindsight, to see what was obvious from the start. So frustrating and frightening.

I can well believe they have a problem. My local doctors surgery is about to close and be pulled down. It is a single story building that sits on "good" ground (I was there when a test trench was dug by an engineer who said as much when they looked in the hole). The fact I witnessed this gives a clue to the problem, its about eight years old and has suffered subsidence since the day it was completed. Cracks started appearing in the first two weeks it was open and are now 2 inches across. I remind you that this is a single story building on good ground. If they can screw that up I am sure a 60 story sky scrapper is a doddle to fubar.

Now I want to go downtown and see it 😅

Love the videos bro!

“Lovely Strong Bed Rock” 😂 really enjoyed that

Having the right foundation is most important before building any building, Even I know about that.

That building likely will be demolished. That still is the cheapest option. They could still reuse the glass facade.

As a construction worker myself (structural ironworker) I can tell you that a 3" lean is totally unacceptable, ESPECIALLY from such a narrow building. I'm willing to bet this has to do with the contractor not using pilings, as the narrator pointed out.

You don't need to be an engineer to look at this building and say with certainty that it will fail. Greed has no limits.

This episode was well written and well presented. I enjoyed it immensely. I fell more educaated.

It's baffling how a construction leading companies making such catastrophic mistakes!

the next building foundation on the tilt side is the problem. If they had built the neighboring foundation properly, this wouldn't have happened. That building must be deconstructed.

Thought this was about the affirmation tower, sad it’s about a issue with a building. But great video

As contractors finish surfaces, having the building out of plumb just makes doing doors and cabinets much harder.

I understand on a typical American house the foundation cost about 20%. Is there a general formula for taller buildings.

That last bit ("If you want to **lean in** to the definitive video channel on construction...") was just _chef's kiss_

As someone that worked in construction for 40 years and specialised in concrete and highrised buildings the last 25+ years, that building is finished, it needs demolishing and starting again.

Odd that piles were not used. There were piles used in the building next door (181 Maiden Lane). They were driven to bedrock or point of refusal. On top of these were elaborate pile caps. The narrow footprint and height of 161 increases the difficulty in resisting any overturning moment. Unfortunate choices.

This problem should never have happened. As both a Chartered Architect and Structural Engineer; PhD in Building Material Physics, I suggest that someone runs some old fashion hand-calculations over the imposed façade loadings related to compensating structural stiffness, respecting Castigliano's second theorem (deflection) and then delves into Rankine Gordon and Perry-Robertson formulae regarding one-end fixed encastré cantilevers; using the building as a vertical column/cantilever projected off the foundations. i.e. the fixed part in the ground. The opposite end; where the deflection occurs in the sky - in this case, the wind replacing gravity as the cantilever is exposed to super-load forces, perhaps not factored holistically into the original calculations - think laterally! This is really simple stuff and the design straight forward to fix; if you are old school with experience in designing 'slippery' air-foil façades - The fault appears to be embodied within two factual logics. (i) the encastré presumption of load transfer to ground has not been sufficiently researched, therefore, the foundations; as designed are unsatisfactory, and, (ii) the wind-load on the superstructure is producing a 'resultant' eccentric force that was not considered properly within the calculations, thus: inducing an overturning moment; as per the cantilever acting as a lever upon the foundations that have become the cantilever's fulcrum. Most young engineers would not know what I am talking about because they have never run a hand calculation in their lives nor researched materials fit-for-purpose through design. i.e. this building has to have a steel frame not reinforced concrete due to the risk of flexure. Many engineers these days have become little more than computer button monkeys having never run an 'eye-inspection' or hand-calculation as a structural analysis safeguard, taking for granted that software acts as a catch-all. If one reads ISO documentation it generally states in the preambles on page 1, that the recommendations are not a Code of Practice, and, that utilisation of such ISO's do not provide protection from professional liability. Nonetheless, it is obvious that the superstructure is causing issues with structural 'stiffness' that in-turn has influenced the foundations. Thus there are two solutions. (i) Knock the building down and turn the site into: a car park, McDonaldo's, Pizza-Hut or whatever the New York moneyed-class has to have, or, (ii) Stiffen the design of the building's spine; which should have been conceived as the service core, and built as aforementioned, in steel due to flexible acknowledging "tall-thin column theory". The trouble is that the world is full of arseholes who do not wish to listen or learn. If this project was managed using BIM to the ISO19650 series, then I expect that such risk elements would have been thrown-up during the Appointed Parties' Risk Evaluation Statement - that is, both Lead Parties supervising: Architecture and Engineering would assess the risk potential of such a design as a 'thin structures' liable to deflection due to 'slenderness ratio'. If not, then all parties involved are utterly stupid. On a well managed project; BIM or otherwise, this type of incident should just not happen. Currently, I work in South East Asia and this type thing would not happen as structural simulation respecting earthquake design would have flagged-up the issues as a problem. Also, many engineers are female Koreans who never let a presumption pass through their hands, as they listen, are vigilant, validate software calculation checks, and never assume to know-it-all. Still it's the Big Apple - Hasta La Vista Baby - That's the way the cookie crumbles baby! これが世の中というものさ．

As soon as I saw how skinny that tower is, I was "that's a foundation problem". Skinny Tower = Deeper and more piles required. Which they apparently didn't use at 7:00, wow. If they don't go and put piles in now (and possibly destroy the basement in the process, they're going to have to dismantle it so wind forces don't knock it over.

I used to pass by it every day on my way to work (before 2020).

Pisa Tower: aaah finally a worthy opponent 🤣

Lots of mistakes were made. It starts with the planning commission. You have an existing tall building on land fill, and you start a huge project next door (trans bay), with lots of vibration. From there, a child can see what went wrong. The only solution is to stop vibrating the area, stop building so tall and heavy. If you are going to underpin, only augers (corkscrewing) should be done. Even then, it’s a gamble. To go big, you should go wide. Look at how the Marriott Marquis was built, and how Frank Lloyd Wright build foundations. Mr. Wright built the Imperal Palace in Japan that survived a huge earthquake, and the Marriott opened the day of Loma Prieta. Both of these cases should be required reading for anyone building on land fill.

These super small footprint towers never looked really confidence inspiring

A testament to how cutting corners doesn’t work out. Ultimately this failure is a regulatory one. By allowing a cheaper, riskier option, it is only a matter of time before someone goes for it in the name of economic gain.

New York city is great...love from INDIA ❤️😍🇮🇳.....

Nice disclaimer, don't start building your own foundations by seeing this video. I Build a lot of foundations and indeed every single one of them are completely different. And sometimes the engineers find surprising solutions for it. At one building we needed to build so called "bridges" according to the construction engineers, they where 3 meter long 15 cm high and 30 cm wide, they weren't attached to the rest of the main foundations, they where laying down on the soil and the building didn't touched them either. But apparently they compensated for the fact that they originally calculated not enough foundation pills. 🤷‍♂️

I have been following this as I am in the NYC area. I am no construction engineer but if you see the soil there when there is an excavation it is awful and 100 year old filler. I can't believe that they would not go down to bedrock and I can't even think it would be possible to correct this with the building standing.

Always top notch reports🤓👍🏼

Pizzarotti was building around 50km of highway in Poland and they were kicked out of site due to lack of progress.

Here in Chicago the Sears Tower leans 6 inches to a foot to the west.

Bedrock or bust! They should've known better than to try and build a skyscraper in NYC on anything but solid bedrock with piles included. They'll need to tear down the building piece by piece, strengthen the foundation and start again, but that's expensive, so instead we get legal wrangling, finger pointing, and denial about the severity of the issue.

for 10 for freds sponsor transition jeez smoother than silk mate

YOOO, Saeed Janbaz was my professor for Construction Management! What a small world!