10 March 2009

Huge Institutions Rule the City; Landmarks Commission Is Toothless; the Usual


OK, let's go over this.

Huge, powerful hospital in quaint, quiet, historic neighborhood sez they need to be really, really big in order to survive. Only a huge tower—right over THERE!, among those tiny buildings—will save them. Over there, though, is the O'Toole Building. And the O'Toole is landmarked. We know that, sez Big Hospital, but we're poor. We're so poor. To walk over to the next block would cost us too much. We're a hardship case! Can we have an exemption, so we can tear the beautiful, but really inconvenient thing down?

"Landmark Schmandmark," sez Landmarks Commission. That's not a problem! But that tower you wanna build is too high! 329 feet is too tall! It's making celebrities like Susan Sarandon mad! And everyone else, too. And gets us bad press. We hate it soooooo much. What? Now it 299 feet tall? Still too huge! What? Now, it's 286 feet high? Oh, JUST RIGHT! That's what we were looking for in a neighborhood where most buildings are 15 stories smaller. You're swell St. Vincent! And good and kind, too. And you love Greenwich Village. Love it so much you're willing to destroy it in order to give its residents good health care!

Don't you think so, human rubber stamp, bad actor and professional puppet, Landmarks Commission chairman Robert B. Tierney? "A superb effort," you say? I thought you'd say that, Bob. What Lehman Brothers is to Wall Street, you are to historic preservation! Have an exploding cigar on me, motherfucker.

3 comments:

Ken Mac said...

yes! I love it. One of your best posts, Brooks. Passion is what this is all about. May that prick eat w - - - and die.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Brooks 100%.
Look at the history of the landmarks commission of the long gone "Coogan Loft building I think on 25th or 26th street and 6th avenue ,First they landmarked it and the old folks and artists that lived there thought they were safe then in a few months under pressure from a certain developer our
distinguished Landmarks preservation commission withdrew their own historic designation,thus started the generic Toronto like hi rise mess of Sixth avenue from 23rd street to up to 34th street.

King Bloomberg must be smiling and now Manhattan has SEVEN major hospitals from 12th street to 34th street.
Saint Vincent's ,New York Eye & Ear infirmary,Beth Israel Medical Center,The Veteren's hospital,Bellevue Hospital,New York
University Tisch Hospital and the
Rusk Institute.

Anonymous said...

Love the post.