Glass Towers on the Rise Outside of Manhattan

"The best views are looking at Manhattan, not looking out from Manhattan," a professor of architecture at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Laurie Hawkinson, said.

The glass towers appear to be bringing a Manhattan sensibility to Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. But developers and architects say the new buildings appeal to contemporary aesthetes, not just Manhattanites fleeing higher rents.

Amid all-brick buildings, glass makes an architectural statement, the executive vice president of the residential brokerage firm the Marketing Directors, Jacqueline Urgo, said. "It's memorable, it's iconic, it's sculptural," she said.

"Having views has always been one of the no. 1 value points of new construction offerings," Ms. Urgo, whose firm has handled sales for glass towers in Queens and the Riverdale section of the Bronx, said. "When you're in the living room of an all-glass space, your eye goes out and expands that space tremendously."

Glass is design's "next step," Ms. Urgo added. "Like what comes after the iPod. The new next step here is floor to ceiling glass."

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