Landmarks Commission to Consider Whether Ugly Towers Are Pretty
The Landmarks Commission has learned how to fuck up in a new way.
Not only do they ignore buildings and districts that should be landmarked, they now consider buidlings that have no right to the status of preserved, treasure buidling. The Commission "is expected on Tuesday to schedule a hearing on whether to designate Silver Towers/University Village, a concrete complex designed by I. M. Pei that was part of Robert Moses’s vast urban renewal program, as a historic landmark," wrote City Room.
I mean look at them. Look at them!! This is modern architecture at its cold, faceless, soulless worst! I don't care is I.M Pei is famous and has a cool-looking name, and put that glass pyramid in the middle of The Louvre, this is crap work, and particularly egregious in that it's in the middle of the Village. The bodegas on either side on my block are more worthy.
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9 comments:
compared to the majority of the other buildings from that era (which i like to call the white brick era), they are certainly noteworthy. and our aesthetics change over time. out today, in tomorrow.
should something that's ugly but noteworthy be landmarked? tough question.
I pissed on that Picasso. Not to make a political or sociological statement. Just because it was there and it was a Picasso.
Or maybe I just talked about pissing on it, and didn't actually do it. I think I was drunk. I'll have to confer with my comrades.
Just the question I'm asking myself, J$.
Nesta, the thing about the Picasso that bugs me is it's not really a Picasso. Another artist put it together with Picasso consulting. Doesn't count, somehow, in my book.
I agree, these buildings are total CRAP and it's amazing how the Landmarks Preservation Commission seemingly ignores great structures or waits too long- PS 64's fiasco also comes to mind, and then goes gaga over 60's garbage like these apartment buildings.
Almost worse is reading their "reports" on these type of buildings and how they go on and on with glowing diatribes about how splended and important some poured concrete high-rise from the 60's or 70's is so great it needs preservation.
Yeah, like they are going to demolish a massive 32 story apartment building- happens but isn't likely, no, the likes of Trump et al are much more likely to buy small "outdated" buildings people adore or are local "landmarks" like PS 64 etc., the ones with significant facades or history, and then destroy THOSE.
All I can say is thank gOD Robert Moses never succeeded in his "grand" plan of a superhighway through the cast-iron district and Washington Square Park!
I have old stereoview cards of Broadway and Houston street taken over a few decades, a lot of buildings were destroyed to widen Houston street and that was the beginning of Moses' destruction plan.
Randall
http://www.lostnewyorkcity.com
"thank gOD Robert Moses never succeeded ..."
You can thank Eleanor Roosevelt.
There's a lot of misinformation here. The Moses expressway plan was nowhere near Wash Sq. Park.
The Silver Towers open up the tight grid of the surrounding area North of Houston in a radical and still fresh way.
Why don't you Manhattan parvenus criticize the shopping mall disguised as Disney-class 'contextual' new construction on Houston in the area South of the Towers.
As to "60's crap" that would be the suburbs in which you guys all grew up.
Cheers
I would trade in a minute, Mr. Anonymous, the two towers for the line of low-lying building that used to be on the north side of Houston. Moses Mid-Manhattan Expressway was to go down 13th Street; in my book, that is near Washington Square. As for 60s crap, I'm not referring to the suburbs (where I did not grow up). If you want examples, I'll gladly point in the direction of any number of office towers, or the innumerable projects that many city planners once thought to be forward-thinking examples of public housing. Like most Anonymous commenters, you don't think things through much before posting.
the NYU gym that is there used to be the little league field for the neighborhood
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