20 September 2011

The Ugly Condo Complexes of Vinegar Hill


Charming, charming Vinegar Hill. What ugly new condo complexes you have.

I was paying a visit to the Vinegar Hill House restaurant the other night when what do I encounter on my way back to the subway but one atrocious new apartment building after another. First came this one, 85 Hudson Street. The architect appears to have been going for the Early Erasmus Hall style. Seriously, I thought this was a school at first. Instead, it's just a gauche and gaudy pile of would-be classy bricks.




The builder of this structure, 99 Gold Street, a renovation of an old warehouse, seems to have been under the delusion that he was in Miami Beach and his creation faced the ocean. What's with all the vacation-rental-style balconies? This is apparently the kind of place that is occupied by young couples who fight a lot. From the sidewalk, I heard every world screamed by a pregnant newlywed chewing out her feckless, selfish, no-good husband, who goes out every night and only thinks of himself. He escaped the harangue by retreating to the balcony and checking his iPhone.

This, by the way, is right next to the site of the historic St. George's Church, which was callously torn down in 2008.


Just down the block from the Miami Vice Towers was this solid black tombstone known as 100 Gold Street. My pals at Corcoran are handling the sales at this beauty. I suspect it may be the headquarters of SPECTRE.

12 comments:

  1. I think 99 Gold is attractive, has interesting layouts and is a creative use of a warehouse building. And i love Miami, so there.

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  2. Bill Haversham9/20/2011 7:30 AM

    While I think the building is not so bad, the space/apartments inside are a joke, space laid out for the insane...

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  3. I like the balconies, 'cause it makes the apartments easy to rob...

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  4. At least the first one attempts to be derivative of some kind of previous NYC style. The other two are out of place for sure.

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  5. who is the person commetning. did soemone tell him that he is god of architecture?&% apparently so!

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  6. I don't have an architecture degree. I am not an architect. I have never built any building. And yet, I have more taste and know more about beauty than that three idiots who built these three structures. Believe it or not!

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  7. TO :Brooks of Shelfield - who told you that you have better taste? just curious...

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  8. It's odd to see commenters here denigrating the spirit of this blog. Me thinks they have stumbled off a bus from Akron. Please, go back.

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  9. It'll never stop happening, Ken. It's OK. Rolls off the back by now.

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  10. The overlapping balconies disturbs me.

    And to the offended commenter: viewers of architecture need not have a degree to be affected by architecture and to comment upon it or criticize it. We all have to look at the crap every day and it affects our emotions, so we have a right to respond to it educated or not.

    Would that designers had more of a thought for the average pedestrian instead of what sort of awards-annual-masturbation material is going down on their blueprint or CAD monitor.

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