A SKYSCRAPER IS A MACHINE THAT MAKES THE LAND PAY.

--Cass Gilbert (1900)

Highrise buildings are the product of high land values, which in turn reflect the demand for prime locations. Skyscrapers can multiply the utility of land by piling many stories on a relatively small site.

As early as 1896, a writer in The Scientific American commented on the concentration of tall buildings in Lower Manhattan:

The raison d'etre of the lofty office building ... is to be found in the enormous appreciation in land values ... mainly due to the concentration of vast commercial interests within a restricted area. The system of steel construction, which has quadrupled the size of building which was formerly possible to erect on a given area, has assisted to raise the value of land to its present high figure and give it a value which it would not otherwise possess.

Nowhere is the premium paid for choice locations clearer than in Lower Manhattan.

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