Building Trumps View
I've pretty much been ignoring Trump SoHo, because I always ignore that tackless vulgarian and his horrendous, taste-free, ego-trip construction projects. But I was walking across Sixth Avenue, look south and saw this. Kind of insists itself upon you, doesn't it? How did a building that tall ever get approved in such a low-lying neighborhood?
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10 comments:
Ever been to my home town of New Orleans? Even the tallest buildings aren't very tall. Trump wants to build a 75-story tower in the middle of downtown.
It didn't. Trump lied about the height, and Bloomberg's DOB didn't feel the need to actually fine him or anything icky like that.
it went up against the protests of the community board, as it was out of zoning, and many signed petitions. one word : Bloomberg
Typical Trump. Typical Bloomberg.
I worked near that building for a few weeks and can report that it is just as ugly up close.
I wondered "since when is this (on Varick) SoHo?" but I guess it fits right in with the idling black SUV mall that SoHo's become.
One day there was a gala gathering of Hummer-demographic "suits" at the hotel. They all crammed onto the grim outdoor deck a few floors from the bottom. I was disappointed that the giant robot building did not start chewing them...
I have discovered a surprising number of my acquaintances who would like to see every building in the five boroughs that is more than 20 years old torn down and replaced with 100 story glass towers. Really. Their fondest dream is to see every square foot of land rebuilt in this fashion. They yearn for the look of Hong Kong. As best as I can tell they have an almost neurotic aversion to all old buildings, or history, or the wear and tear that accompanies long periods of human habitation. As for Trump and Bloomie they seem to be motivated solely by enriching themselves without heed of the social costs of their monstrous "egofaces", presumably via the self-serving philosophy that what is good for them is good for all. Sadly, my obsessive-compulsive history-hating compadres play right into the Trumpskyites hands.......
Who are these insane friends of yours, Johnny?
Brooks,
They tend to be young men and women who grew up in suburbs and moved to NYC for well-paying jobs. Think of them as aliens who arrive in the city with their only image of it being postcards of the skyscraper skyline. On actually walking the streets they find themselves repelled by city realities: dust, noise, lots of people, rich and poor mixed together. Because they reject the city as it is, they would like it to be clean, sterile, well-ordered --- an urban version of what they consider utopia - suburbia. Hence, cover the land with glass towers. Also they tend to see everything in strictly economic terms such that the best use for any property is that which provides the greatest return on investment. It is a very limited value system but one that is easy to live with by its adherents because it reduces all decisions to very simple ones that yield numerical solutions. Thinking about who holds this attitude, I find it most often amongst twenty-somethings with well-paying jobs whose sense of being "now", and young and powerful leads them to have scant regard for anything "not new", including the built environment. I think they conflate their personal development with land development, so that knocking down the Village and putting up skyscrapers instead would be seen as a positive thing because it mirrors the freedom, expansion and newness of their lives.
Well, I am almost 70 years in this
city and realized last week how much everything has changed when i walked on 14th street ,Manhattan and a jerk student hit me with his bike as I was on the sidewalk,he was trying to time the streetlight and pedestrians walking on the sidewalk to be able to ride directly thru an open door & into his NYU dorm hallway.
I was not injured too badly.
Mike of Tin Pan Alley
I'm sorry to hear that, Mike. I hope you mend quickly. I think the rise in biking is a wonderful thing. But I wish bikers would improve their behavior and be respectful of their fellow citizens, especially pedestrians. Pedestrians should always be yielded to by any form of wheeled transport.
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