The city, drawn year by year

An isometric line drawing built from the city's building footprints file (NYC Open Data, CC BY). Manhattan below 60th Street, buildings over 50 feet. The window opens at the city's mid-1970s fiscal-crisis low, not an arbitrary year. Construction dates before 1986 cluster on 0s and 5s in the records, so it holds 1976 to 1985 as one era, then moves year by year. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom.