[imagesource: Alyssa Maltese Optimist Consulting]

In 1913, the Woolworth Building rose above New York with a design that was meant to inspire confidence in modernity.

Back then it was the headquarters of a sprawling discount retail chain and has since become an iconic part of lower Manhattan, once known as the tallest building in the world at 792 feet tall.

Well, that title has long since been stripped from its 55 storeys of steel and terracotta, but it is still lauded as completely unique and inherent to the New York skyline.

It is at the topmost floor that things get really interesting.

‘The Pinnacle’, as it’s being marketed, is an apartment that’s currently on sale.

It’s supposedly unlike any other property in the city, the nation, and likely the world, per The Daily Beast, which calls it the “$79 Million Lair”:

[It] includes four full floors within the tower’s pyramidal spire as well as a mezzanine and 360-degree open-air terrace at the building’s tip. Views spill outward endlessly in every direction from dozens of windows, filling the space with light.

There is a silence there, so far above the city’s streets, and the imagination hums at the thought of calling such a place “home.”

I guess the apartment’s $79 million (roughly R1,2 billion) price tag makes a little more sense, then, even though it is unfinished.

Part of the appeal is that it’s “floor after floor of cavernous possibility”.

This is a rendering of the interior:

Having started off as the headquarters of Frank Winfield Woolworth’s retail chain, The New York Times described it as “a skyscraper built by the nickels of millions”.

Woolworth started from the bottom and rose to the top pretty quickly with his “Woolworth Idea”, which was that it is human nature to want something for nothing.

He bought the tower in cash after making a killing by selling a higher volume of goods at a lower price, an idea wholly unprecedented at the time.

It was nicknamed “the Cathedral of Commerce” for its gothic detailing and shopping paradise, but then Woolworth’s businesses suffered amidst the rise of a new generation of discount retailers, like Wal-Mart.

Now the building has been transformed into a sky-high residential palace. Behold, the lobby:

Currently, there are 33 apartments in the building, with prices starting at around $6 million each.

At the basement level are a couple of amenities, like individual locking wine closets and a marble-lined swimming pool, which is original to the building’s 1913 opening and was used by Woolworth himself.

From the 48-second mark, you’ll get a good glimpse inside:

I’m not sure I want to pay that amount of money for something unfinished, but there’s definitely a world of possibilities for a willing buyer.

[source:dailybeast]