New York Magazine is running a weekly series right now that tells the stories behind key moments in the city’s cultural history. This week’s is about how the Time Warner Center came to be.

Like most real estate projects, it took an enormous amount of time for it be realized. Multiple developers had attempted to buy the site, which previously housed the New York Coliseum.

In 1987, the agency put out a call for proposals, its parameters calculated to yield the highest price and the biggest building. Among the 13 developers who responded was Donald Trump, who proposed the world’s tallest tower, 137 stories high.

It’s a good example of just how difficult it can be to get a large project off the ground. The Time Warner Center opened in 2003. Thank you Paul for sending this along. Click here for the full story.