Bank of America Tower

Bank of America Tower is the name of a super skyscraper in New York's Manhattan neighborhood, completed in 2009. The tower was named after its owner, Bank of America, the largest US bank since 2006. The building is located in Midtown, near Times Square on the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) between 42nd and 43rd Streets, near Bryant Park. The address of the tower is One Bryant Park.

The 366-meter-high skyscraper has been the second tallest building in New York after the Empire State Building's construction on December 15, 2007, which is 381 meters high (443 meters with mast). It towers above the Chrysler Building and the New York Times Tower, each 319 meters high. In the spring of 2013, however, it was surpassed in New York by the 541-meter One World Trade Center, and finally, in late 2015, tower 432 Park Avenue. It is currently the fourth tallest building in the city and the sixth tallest building in the US.

The roof of the building is 288 meters high, with a peak measuring 366 meters. The mast on its roof counts as opposed to simply patched antennas to the official building height, as it is part of the architecture of the building. The entire building façade was covered with glass. On the roof, another glass wall reaches a few meters high (up to a height of about 292 meters). The upwardly tapered building tip is mounted in the middle of the roof. Since December 2010, the lace is illuminated at night in different colors.

Construction began in 2004 and was completed externally in December 2007. The tower was built by the New York company Tishman Construction, which also works at Ground Zero. The interior work of the building lasted until the beginning of 2009. The eponym, Bank of America, occupies most of the 195,000 square meters of office space for itself. The floor space is spread over 55 floors, which is comparatively low for a building of this size. The tower is the tallest building that Bank of America has commissioned for construction. The construction of the Bank of America Tower cost about a billion dollars.

During the construction work, several accidents were sustained in which passersby were injured by falling debris and broken glass. This came along that glass parts of the façade were apparently not attached properly and so fell off.By using multi-pane insulating glass, automatic blinds and a rainwater collection system, the building should be environmentally friendly.

In May 2010, the Bank of America Tower won the highest award for eco-friendly skyscrapers. The overall environmental friendliness, the quality of workplaces, the ventilation and electricity consumption and the use of building materials were rated as particularly positive.

Inside the tower is a solid concrete core, which should protect cables, staircases and elevators from shock or fire. The structure of the floors and the columns that run along the façade were made of steel.