in the fall of 2012, i was at the heckscher playground on the southern end of central park with my daughter, and suddenly it got sort of dark and cool, and people started packing up and heading home. and it seemed sort of odd because it was a clear day. and i looked up and realized that the sun had gone behind that big tower i'd seen a few months before, going up. >> this is what warren st. john saw, a skyscraper, climbing high above the park in the heart of manhattan. >> didn't think much about it until the following spring when i was at a playground on 72nd street and fifth avenue, nearly a mile north, and the same thing happened. and i looked up, and it was a shadow from the same building. and it had stretched three-quarters of a mile north across the park. and i thought to myself, how'd that happen? >> new yorkers aren't easy to startle, but, like st. john, many of us have been stunned to learn that the tower casting those shadows across the children's playground is the vanguard of more to come. a line of gated castles is forming along the southern rim of central park, staking a privile