Nuclear power plants? Landing pads for spaceships? Board game pieces?
Actually, they’re apartment buildings—and if visionary designer (some would say futuristic crackpot) Buckminster Fuller had his way, they may actually have been built in Harlem.
Fuller drew up these plans in 1964: His idea was to build 15 100-story structures spanning the entire width of Upper Manhattan, with each tower capable of housing 45,000 people.
It’s an intriguing idea—unless you had to live there.
But it wasn’t as crazy as Fuller’s 1960 plan, which was to cover Manhattan in a two-mile dome.
The point was to help control the weather and air pollution while keeping energy costs down.
Neither plan, of course, made it past fantasy stage.
Tags: architecture in New York City, Buckminster Fuller, crazy archtiects, dome over Manhattan, Harlem history, housing never built in NYC, New York in the 1960s, towers in Harlem
Ephemeral New York 
September 13, 2012 at 11:45 am |
The drawing of the 15 100 story towers shows two bridges crossing the Hudson River. The one on the right is obviously the GW, but did Fuller also intend to build, or have built, another bridge south of the GW?
September 13, 2012 at 1:50 pm |
Maybe Buckminster was referring to the proposed 125th St. Bridge? The idea developed in the 1950s, so perhaps he thought it was going to happen.
https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/the-bridges-never-built-over-the-hudson-river/
September 14, 2012 at 5:32 pm |
Wow. The 25 Precinct today has a census population of about 50,000. He proposed putting 7 of these things in that one area! That would’ve been one heck of a morning commute. 🙂
Question: Why the big open space on the east side of 5 Ave between 112-115? The projects on the west side are represented, but the east side is empty.
September 15, 2012 at 11:29 pm |
those buildings are simply horrifying.
October 24, 2012 at 8:02 pm |
Those Bucky Domes got built-mostly-in William Gibson’s version of New York (see the Neuromancer trilogy).
Could still happen…
November 1, 2012 at 7:05 pm |
[…] Futuristic housing never built in 1960s Harlem (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com) […]
April 12, 2013 at 1:31 am |
[…] A few examples? Moving sidewalks in Mahattan, a subway tunnel to Staten Island, a bridge spanning 125th Street to New Jersey, and 100-story housing projects in Harlem. […]
April 12, 2014 at 5:48 am |
[…] The history of New York City is littered with never-realized proposals: moving sidewalks, a burial ground in Central Park, and these 100-story apartment houses meant for Harlem. […]
June 29, 2015 at 3:51 am |
[…] York City that also never made it past the planning stage, such as a speedway in Central Park, a 100-story housing development in Harlem, and moving sidewalks to whisk pedestrians to their […]
February 12, 2018 at 6:33 am |
[…] like moving sidewalks, a West Side airport, and 100-story housing developments in Harlem, and an even weirder 1934 plan to fill in the Hudson River, this is another bizarre plan […]