The Best Laid Plans of New York City's Building Boom

"Only nine months ago, each of the buildings on the following pages stood a fighting chance of making the jump from architect’s drawings to glass, steel, concrete, and brick. Today, all are on indefinite, very costly hold. That doesn’t necessarily mean death; developers, with all they’ve invested monetarily and emotionally, routinely maintain that construction is poised to continue as soon as financing gets back on track. But as often as not, time passes them by, and the lots sit unchanged, waiting for new architects and developers to reimagine their future for a different, more modest world. In the meantime, we are left not with towers or spires or bold cantilevers, but snapshots, renderings. A portrait of a city that never was."