The commissioner would not say whether the high-rise, set for 43 stories at 303 East 51st Street and Second Avenue, should have been built at a different height or interior square footage.
That studio in Manhattan will be dark, empty and awaiting the Trump wrecking ball, which will clear the space for a new high-rise set for "The Apprentice" and its 17 spinoffs on NBC and Bravo, all of them starring Donald Trump and his stone-faced daughter, Ivanka.
But the two largest ones were high-rises set on less than an acre apiece, and they did little to announce their presence.
"High-Rise," set in 1975 (the same year the book was published), takes place inside a massive skyscraper.
Meanwhile, workers are busy building the 800-ton, 408-foot spire that will sit atop the high-rise, set to be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
Its high-rise setting affords a special feature: a rooftop deck where diners can soak up sunshine (perfect for the Christmas season, the height of summer here), while tucking into terrine made from native game and braaied (grilled) burgers, given a Balkan touch with salty kashkaval cheese.
Access to a 20,000-square-foot club level complete with a movie theater, wine tasting room, fitness center and heated lap pool completes the high-rise setting.
It's made up of a series of long, linear high-rise blocks set in gardens.
In Sofia, Bout checked into the Park Hotel Moskva, a shabby, state-owned high-rise, and set out for the office of a Bulgarian arms dealer named Peter Mirchev.
On the eve of the opening ceremony, in the high-rise apartments set aside for the press, I shook Rodda awake with the news that there were terrorists in the Olympic village.
There is a quiet factory, a sad hotel, a scattering of high-rise buildings set in a mountainous coastal landscape that seems to be biding its time until the people and their follies disappear.
