December 21: Building Skyscrapers

Structural engineer Ysrael Seinuk, who innovated in the use of reinforced concrete to make high-rise buildings that could withstand high winds and earthquakes, was born on this date in Havana in 1931. Among the iconic New York buildings he helped to construct were the 57-story Galleria on 57th Street near Park Avenue, the New York Palace Hotel (formerly the Helmsley Palace) on Madison at 50th Street, and the 58-story Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. He also worked on the O-14 office tower in Dubai (pictured here) and the Chapultepec Tower in a highly seismic zone of Mexico City. Seinuk was a much-admired professor at Cooper Union for much of his career. In 2005, five years before his death, Time magazine named him among the “25 most influential Hispanics in America.”

“My work has always been about stretching the horizon.” —Ysrael Seinuk