Go Big or Go Home

Hello readers! It’s your Civic Pulse CFO and Co-Founder Athanasios Theodorou. After a trip to New York for the holidays, I decided to provide you with a real taste of American culture, politics and media, as well as health, busting or confirming myths, noticing new trends and acting as the first regional correspondent for the Pulse, at least in theory. Today, we’ll be examining American craftsmanship at its finest: architecture. The City that Never Sleeps is not only home to some of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen in all my travels but also has one of the most impressive skylines in the world!

It all began in the 1900s when, after the introduction of steel-framed construction, New York City experienced, in simple terms, a building boom, leading to what is now called the “first great age” of skyscrapers, just before WWI broke out. Unsurprisingly, when the war ended in 1918 and the economy started growing again, people sought prestige, glamour and excitement in their daily lives, leading to the wild era of the Roaring Twenties and yet another building boom in the Big Apple! Ever heard of the Chrysler Building? The Empire State Building? Well those are barely 100 years old, having been built during that era of Art Deco and Jazz! It was actually right around when these images started being popularised:

Workers dining at the edge of a steel beam above the soon-to-be Rockefeller Plaza? A true classic. And since then, the city has never really lost its touch. Even when tragedy struck on September 11, 2001, claiming countless lives and destroying two of the most defining buildings of the NYC skyline, New Yorkers raised the brand-new One World Trade Center, a sight to behold! Here’s a fun fact about it: Did you know that a beam sits on the 104th floor with Barack Obama’s signature and the line “We remember, we rebuild, we come back stronger!”? Well, now you do!

Now that you have all the background information, let’s get back to our main theme, the tourist experience. Truth be told, you cannot experience the size of New York buildings if you haven’t been to the city, not through digital interactive sightseeing, not through descriptions, not through anything available at the moment. It’s truly marvelous. There’s not a single building that doesn’t have something going on about it, be it its mesmerising architecture, its impossible size or just its history. Every street and each avenue has something new, even when you believe that you have seen it all. 

That experience really gets to show how 1900s architecture did not just perform an experiment on New York City, seeing how far they could go without anyone noticing that they had just made buildings very tall and overwhelming in an attempt to make the place look nice. It shows that they had a vision, that they believed they could make a never-ending stream of skyscrapers into something that would be truly appealing and I think that they’ve managed that much. But, I admit it, the city can be overwhelming at times, tourists must tread carefully while walking in the streets of the City that Never Sleeps. It can be a true shock, especially if you’re visiting for the first time!

The best part is that New York’s legacy lives on. Even right outside my hotel, construction work is continuing, making the city even more beautiful. While I travelled around the Big Apple, I noticed the characteristic green barriers, indicating that a building is undertaking a renovation or is currently being built, everywhere, with permits posted up and project plans scheduling completion for 2025, now finished, but also 2026 and even 2027. 

If one thing is certain, New York City will continue to evolve and offer new jaw-dropping sights to visitors. Maybe that’s what the city has always been about, going big or going home. Broadway Theater, the Times Square billboards, street performers and more, all make up the Culture Capital of the World, where everyone is competing for your attention. Naturally, skyscrapers would tower above you, seeming more impressive each time, so that you would also pay some attention to the actual city! At its core, it is an ingenious design that subtly makes New York, and not only the experience that it offers, one of the most popular tourist populations in the world!

That’s New York for you: rising skyscrapers and an overwhelming atmosphere, spectacle all over. But is it actually a must-see for travel enthusiasts? Well, absolutely! I guarantee you that you can’t say that you have seen all kinds of cities if you have not been to the Big Apple, it’s truly a category of itself. This article was but a taste of what the city has to offer from the perspective of architecture. No Halal carts, multicultural bars or subtle big city politics were mentioned, although you can read more about some of those themes in our other articles. It just really felt like the architectural culture of New York deserved its own, standalone article because the genius that went into the city’s design is often overlooked. 

I hope this article has led you to see the City that Never Sleeps in new eyes, understand more about American culture in general or just entertain you, I don’t judge. I urge you to share your experiences about traveling to New York down in the article’s comments section. What do you think has changed since the last time you’d been there? I’ll be reading each and every comment and replying to the best of my abilities.

Hello again readers! I believe that you can tell that this was a new, different kind of article. We would be really interested in knowing if you liked it! We have never really had a traditional regional correspondent, as our team’s size would not allow for that, but acting as one while on a trip has been really interesting! We of course hope that the article my efforts have produced has been interesting for you too. You can always submit your feedback in the official Civic Pulse email, info@civicpulsejournal.com, or contact me directly through thanos.theodorou.cfo@civicpulsejournal.com. I’d be happy to hear YOUR opinion!