Earlier, we mentioned that developer Aby Rosen once again headed to the Landmarks Preservation Commission with a Lord Norman Foster-designed plan for 980 Madison Avenue tucked under his arm. Last time around, Foster's glassy residential addition to the former Parke-Bernet Galleries was shot down amidst an outbreak of rage from Upper East Side neighbors. This time around, a four-story bronze-wrapped addition was greeted more kindly. But not by novelist Tom Wolfe who spoke out vehemently against Foster's design the first time around. Wolfe also led the last-ditch effort to landmark 2 Columbus Circle before it was turned into a giant stereo. At yesterday's hearing, the dapper Upper East Sider testified:
"980 Madison is in the heart of the Upper East Side historic district and it does not need this additional structure. The district has been treated as a specifically landmarked area," Mr. Wolfe said in his testimony. "I think it is incumbent upon the developers to ask Mr. Foster to roam through the great archives of architectural history, or architectural future, and come up with something that has more meaning with the Upper East Side."
Attention all professional and amateur daredevils: You had your fun, but the New York Times would like you to keep your hands off of their starchitecture, por favor. Renzo Piano's oversized stepladder is now spider-free, thanks to some wooden barricades installed this morning. So if you want to call attention to global warming, malaria, gas prices, affordable housing or the disappointing selection at Muji, you're going to have to take it somewhere else.
A lot of people were baffled by Italian starchitect Renzo Piano's decision to outfit the façade of the new Times Tower on Eighth Avenue in thousands upon thousands of rods. And when ice started falling from the bars, that confusion turned to outright fear. But now, the mad brilliance of Renzo is revealed. His intention all along was to provide a step-ladder for "French Spiderman" Alain Robert, so that the daredevil could bring attention to the issue of global warming!!! Though, based on ANIMAL's awesome up-close photos of the Frechman in action this afternoon, it's not clear if his dance moves are helping or hurting the cause.
· French Spiderman Scales the 'Times' [ANIMAL]
· CurbedWire: Spider-man in Midtown? [Curbed]
On Friday, in the wake of the Upper East Side crane collapse and all its accompanying coverage, developer Forest City Ratner and starchitect Frank Gehry officially unveiled the 76-story Beekman Tower, the Financial District luxury rental building made of wavy steel and a six-story brick base. It's purty. However, given the building's massiveosity (the occasion calls for made-up words, we think), a lot of residents of this portion of the upper FiDi, just east of City Hall, stand to get their views and sunlight messed with. Over the weekend, we received these shots from a Curbed tipster in proximity of Gehry's rapidly rising piece of crinkled metal. His take on the building's neighborhood impact: "Love what it's going to do to the retail/restaurant scene, hate what it's doing to my view." Many locals probably share that take. The good news is that the building has room for all of them!
· Gehry & Ratner Officially Reveal the Beekman Tower [Curbed]
· Gehry's Beekman Tower Gets Presented, Goes Street [Curbed]
· Beekman Tower [Forest City Ratner]
Today at noon, Frank Gehry's 76-story rental building—the Beekman Tower—was supposed to be officially unveiled (after previously showing it off to locals) at a press conference down on Spruce Street just east of City Hall. The event was canceled in the wake of the crane collapse uptown. At least, that's what we were told. Apparently, some sort of event went on, because both The Real Deal and The Architect's Newspaper have first-hand accounts of the proceedings. The Architect's Newspaper also has the renderings of the Forest City Ratner-developed FiDi building, seen above. No signs of that graffiti logo (phew), and here are some more details on the 903-unit building:
EAST VILLAGE—It seems like every empty lot in the East Village is sprouting, except for the Milstein's of course (although...). Here's the latest one: "Anyone have info on the development at 315 East 11th Street b/w 1st and 2nd? The parking company moved to the formerly underused garage across the street and recently began demo work on this garage, here's the demo permit. The only info I've been able to dig up is that they're planning to build an 8 story, 36 unit residential building there. The building is gone and it looks like they've started digging the foundation." Well, that's already a lot of information, but according to another permit, the Stephen B. Jacobs Group is involved. [CurbedWire Inbox]
FINANCIAL DISTRICT—Even though in essence it has already been unveiled, Frank Gehry's Beekman Tower, the 76-story rental building that's #1 with all the kidz, will officially be revealed following a Forest City Ratner "construction ceremony" on Friday afternoon on Spruce Street. On hand: color renderings, models, Bruce Ratner and the Gehrmeister himself. [CurbedWire Inbox]
1) In last week's PriceSpotter, we touched on the madness of the resale market at 15 Central Park West (right). Now, Josh Barbanel reports that the buyer of a $30 million penthouse in the building has been offered $100 million for it (he turned it down!) and there are rumors that $125 million has been offered for another apartment. Also, the world is a cold, dead place. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
2) Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., is endangered, and yet his Urban Ass House in Hudson Square, Richguyville, is just dandy. Up in Architect Heaven (it's like regular heaven but the zoning is lax and there are no community boards), PJ just took off his glasses and shot the residents of Connecticut quite the look. ['A Tiny Masterpiece, Unloved, Faces Threat'/Andy Newman]
3) Luxury condo buyers along the isolated Williamsburg waterfront will most likely have to throw some additional cash into the kitty if they want that ferry service that every developer has advertised as an amenity. Also, this photo makes Williamsburg look post-apocalyptic. [Posting/C.J. Hughes]
4) Artsy Brooklynites priced out of Park Slope are gentrifying Kensington, and rumors of a coffee shop (a coffee shop, people!) are making the rounds. Ah, Brooklyn. [Living In/Jake Mooney]
MePa—The warm and fuzzy lovefest surrounding Renzo Piano's Whitney downtown expansion continues with a unanimous vote for the plan from Community Board 2. Per an email: "The Whitney Museum's downtown expansion plans took another step forward last night with a unanimous vote in favor from Community Board 2. The new building, deigned by architect Renzo Piano, will be built at the base of the High Line, on Gansevoort and Washington Streets." [CurbedWire Inbox]
CARROLL GARDENS—It's not a lovefest by a longshot, but the steady march to make an important zoning change that would make it harder to put big additions on buildings and limit the size of new ones continues. (The change would redefine very narrow streets as actually being narrow rather than wide because of big gardens out front.) The "narrow streets" text amendment has passed the local Community Board and just got a thumbs up from the Borough President. Next stop is the City Planning Commission and, then, the City Council. [CurbedWire Inbox]
As a follow-up to our report on Forest City Ratner's presentation of the Frank Gehry 76-story luxury rental tower near City Hall, we offer the above series of slides that shows the progression of future construction. It's like a digital flipbook! Fun for the whole family! (People, it's the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Bear with us here.)
· Gehry's Beekman Tower Gets Presented, Goes Street [Curbed]
The gang from developer Forest City Ratner met last night with folks living near their new Frank Gehry-designed luxury rental tower—the crinkled steel colossus at 8 Spruce Street also known as the Beekman Tower—and they brought along a nifty PowerPoint presentation to share more info about the underway project. Lower Manhattan's wavy wonder has already picked up a major endorsement, so it was nice to get the full scoop. But before getting into the nitty-gritty of the construction and the community benefits and the move-ins and all that fun stuff, can we take a moment to reflect on that Beekman/Gehry logo seen above? It was strange enough when Ian Schrager unveiled his high-brow interpretation of graffiti at the trés chic 40 Bond, but now Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry want street cred? Guys, at least save it for Brooklyn!
Delays are nothing new for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center, but at least this one is for a good reason. The Port Authority just issued a statement saying the authority has granted developer Larry Silverstein a six-month extension to get Towers 3 and 4 done—moving the completion dates to mid-2012 for Tower 3 and spring 2012 for Tower 4—because Silverstein Properties is in negotiations with Merrill Lynch to move the firm to Tower 3. According to Silverstein, Tower 3 would need to be redesigned (though the extent of that redesign is unclear) to suit Merrill, and the foundation plans for Towers 3 and 4 would have to be amended. Hence, the extension. A deal with Merrill Lynch to fully occupy the building would be a major coup for Silverstein, given the lengthy courtship of the firm by several developers. Work on Towers 3 and 4 is already underway. A look at Sir Richard Rogers' 71-story WTC Tower 3, aka 175 Greenwich Street, is presented above.
· Merrill Lynch Staying Put; Hotel Pennsylvania Safe? [Curbed]
· Work to Begin on Freedom's Friends This Week [Curbed]
· WTC Final Designs: Tower 3 Will Step All Over You [Curbed]
Starchitecture geeks, get excited. Thirty years after he published Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas is bringing his Office for Metropolitan Architecture—and the adorable hipster army that fills its ranks—to Manhattan to build us yokels some apartments. That's not news, but this is: the teaser website for 23 East 22nd Street has gone live, and the plans will be revealed to the public in mid-to-late June. Wait, 23 East 22nd Street? Isn't that the towering One Madison Park? Why yes, yes it is. If you'll recall, the developers decided to push ahead with an additional 20-story building once the 60-story glass tower's condos sold for 87 gajillion dollars each. The Koolhaas annex will reportedly have "zigzag units with different ceiling heights" and "balconies that stretch across multiple floors." In short, Rem is going to out-crazy fellow Dutch starchitect Ben van Berkel's splashy Manhattan debut. Sorry, brosef!
· 23 East 22nd Street [23e22.com]
· Rem Koolhaas Tackling New One Madison Park Building [Curbed]
When Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel dropped in on the Landmarks Preservation Commission to explain in detail his proposed 75-story mixed-use tower at 53 West 53rd Street—called the Tower Verre—his ulterior motive was obvious: blind the commissioners with so much starchitect power that they wouldn't even notice the ornery locals gathered to argue against the skyscraper. It worked! Yesterday, the LPC approved the transfer of air rights from the nearby University Club and St. Thomas Church to the Tower Verre site, clearing at least one major hurdle for the apartment building/Museum of Modern Art gallery. The proposal still has to wind its way through the City Planning Commission and the City Council, which gives the opponents who condemn the building's lack of "harmony" time to regroup. Still, that's one down.
· Nouvel Tower Gets the Nod Of City’s Landmarks Panel [Sun]
· MoMA Mia! Starring Jean Nouvel, David Childs & the Peanut Gallery [Curbed]
· Nouvel's 53 West 53rd Street in Gorgeous Detail [Curbed]
When Lord Norman Foster, an architect so important that his driver's license also reads Baron Foster of Thames Bank, tried to pull a Hearst on the Parke-Bernet Gallery at 980 Madison Avenue—inserting a glassy new tower into a drab existing building—the locals threw a hissy fit so fierce that the plan was shelved. The Upper East Side generation gap that caused the disconnect would seem insurmountable, but Foster and developer Aby Rosen are back for round two, and Nicolai Ouroussoff has the reveal of the proposed new 980 Madison Avenue today. Like the previous design, it's a new building stuck into an existing structure, but this one is low and lazy. It's hard to get a feel from the one little rendering, so we go to The Ouroussoff:
Clad in elegant bronze bands, its low blocky form would rest directly on the existing structure, echoing its exact proportions. More important, perhaps, it would be far less visible from the multimillion-dollar penthouse apartments just across the street.
New York magazine famously summed up the canon of 15 Central Park West architect Robert A.M. Stern as "the best nostalgia money can buy," and his Superior Ink project in the Far West Village plays right into that backhanded compliment. The West 12th Street development, a condo mid-rise built on the site of the former Superior Ink factory (which lends its name but not its structure, which was demolished) flanked by a row of new "classic" West Village townhouses on Bethune Street, is now getting its prefab brickwork hoisted into place. A Curbed tipster snapped the above pic and writes, "I was surprised to see pre-fabricated wall slabs sitting on the street on a flatbed just waiting to be 'hung' on the outside of the building. Figured for those prices, the brickwork would actually be done by hand. Guess that's naive of me to think!" Well, the panels will most likely stay in place, a good thing because this building does not need another incident. Still, how Dumbo!
1) There's an interesting compare and contrast for those who like to do such things between the 2006 Atlantic Yards photo gallery and the current post-new renderings one. Atlantic Yards Report pulls them down and compares. (The 2008 gallery is the only one still online at the project's website.) [AYR]
2) Presumably Frank Gehry has put his battle helmet on or doesn't read the reactions to his buildings, but if he looks at today's Daily News he might feel sad. People are not loving his design. Reaction in Brooklyn ranged from "you're kidding" and "it's awful" to "ugly" and "a post-apocalyptic Earth." The News headlined it the 'Lego' Building. In our own Curbed poll, 29% percent said they liked it versus 19% that like the original Miss Brookliyn, with "non e of the above being the resounding winner with 52% [NYDN]
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