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American Morning

New Building on NYC Skyline

Aired April 24, 2002 - 08:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go up north now to New York City for a change of pace. There is a new building on the city skyline, so why does it leave CNN's Jeanne Moos thinking about waistlines of all things.

Here's Jeanne with the skinny on the latest architectural addition to the Big Apple.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pedestrians on 52nd Streets are doing double takes. In some cases, mouths gaped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's phenomenal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think It's horrible.

MOOS: New York City skyscrapers are like its residents -- they come in all sizes and shapes. So no wonder the champagne flowed at the dedication of a building 24 stories tall and 25 feet in width.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-five feet is the length of my living room.

MOOS: In an age when skinny is celebrated, the new kid on the block is the supermodel of sky scrapers.

(on camera): Is this the skinniest skyscraper in New York?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The skyscraper, come on, it's a small little tower.

MOOS (voice-over): And he is its humble architect, Austrian-born Raymond Abraham.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love limitations.

MOOS: In this case, the limitation was the site, previously occupied by a townhouse owned by the Austrian government. The new tower is called the Austrian cultural forum. Where they plan to showcase modern Austrian culture, not that old sound of music stuff.

Far above the sidewalk on the roof terrace, partygoers were surrounded by fatter towers. (on camera):Will this be a famous building?

It's a famous building already.

MOOS (voice-over): One historian called it the most important modern architecture to be built in New York in four decades.

CLIFFORD PEARSON, SENIOR EDITOR, "ARCHITECTURAL RECORD": The outside is really is sort of sexy, like...

MOOS (on camera): Sexy?

PEARSON: Yes, sort of like a stiletto heel. But I must admit, when you come inside, it feels very constrained.

MOOS (voice-over): Not unlike wearing stilettos.

At the opening reception, there was a lo of turning sideways to get by.

But there is plenty of room for a library and a performance space, and a five-story apartment for the forum's director.

(on camera): At least you're a kind of skinny guy for this.

MOOS (voice-over): Buildings so skinny that the Living room takes up one floor, the dining room, another, the bedroom yet another.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose office is this up there?

MOOS: That's the director's office with the oddly shaped windows designed to frame the view. Sure, there are narrower buildings, for instance, this 9 1/2 foot wide townhouse in Greenwich Village, or parts of the flat iron building but none so dramatic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it looks like a prison. It doesn't look happy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like a guillotine is going to fall any moment.

MOOS: Well, now that you mention it, maybe there is a resemblance. That's what I said, it was a cut above the rest.

And if you don't like it, off with your head.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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