Construction on the property that has served as the cornerstone of Manhattan’s most fashionable shopping district since 1940 began in January 2020 and is scheduled to be completed in spring 2022, unveiling a re-envisioned interior and an expansive glass façade that opens to an outdoor terrace on the upper levels. (OMA New York rendering)

Contractors made construction history the second weekend of November when they used a massive crane to lift another, smaller, crane to the top of the new Tiffany flagship store at 727 Fifth Ave. in midtown Manhattan.

This is only the fourth time in New York City construction history that a crane has lifted a crane onto the roof of a building.

The mobile crane will be used to continue transformation of the store. It will help build the upper addition (floors eight, nine and 10) of the 10-story building from offices into an exhibition, event and client space.

The giant 105-ton, 8-axle Liebherr LTM1500 crane, with help from a Tadano 450 crane and eight large trucks serving as counterweights, lifted a slightly smaller 5-axle mobile Liebherr LTM1130 crane, weighing approximately 66 tons, seven stories over 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Construction on the property that has served as the cornerstone of Manhattan's most fashionable shopping district since 1940 began in January 2020 and is scheduled to be completed in spring 2022, unveiling a re-envisioned interior and an expansive glass façade that opens to an outdoor terrace on the upper levels.

New York's world-renowned architecture firm OMA designed the renovation, which reimagines the retail experience while preserving the historic identity of the original building.

The project is the Tiffany's building's most comprehensive renovation since completion in 1940.

Under the direction of OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and Jake Forster, an associate, the vertical addition is envisioned as a diversification of the building's existing retail ecosystem. The upper level of the expansion will be enclosed in a textured glass curtain wall with a more typical glass-clad volume recessed below. The entire expansion is surrounded by an open-air terrace with a perimeter of light landscaping.

"Tiffany's Fifth Avenue flagship is more than a retail space, it is a destination with a public dimension," Shigematsu said. "The new addition is informed by programmatic needs of the evolving brand — a gathering place that acts as a contemporary counterpart to the iconic ground-level space and its activities."

Construction kicked off in 2019 and is expected to wrap by spring 2022. While work continues, Tiffany & Co. has temporarily relocated its flagship to an adjacent storefront at 6 East 57th Street.

As evidenced on Fifth Avenue, the Liebherr line of 25 LTM mobile cranes have powerful, long telescopic booms that can reach great working heights quickly and easily. Flexibility is the highest priority for the equipment — the right crane for every job that can be configured quickly using functional lattice extensions, folding jibs, fixed and luffing lattice jibs.

This story also appears on Crane Equipment Guide.

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