Ugliest Buildings in New York City

[Viktorkrum77]

Do most New Yorkers still despise the Met Life building (formerly Pan Am building)? Is it still, to date, the most hated building in New York City?

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

[MidtownGuy]

We've got newcomers that are much worse to steal our ire. I particularly hate the Atlas, the ugly new Marriott next to Bryant Square Park, 6-12 Barclay, and just about all of the new buildings around the far end of West 42nd.

[OmegaNYC]

I don't hate the building. I think it is one of the best flat-top building in the city. It is right next to the GE Building, IMO.

[kliq6]

Marriot 39th and 6th, my opinion the ugliest and most wasted prime site out there

[NoyokA]

I've never hated the Metlife Building.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Ditto.

[MikeW]

They should restart the helicopter service from it's roof to JFK.

[NYguy]

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

Right now, I'm very unhappy with the NY Times tower. And it seems to have frozen in space & time, no sign of anything to change my mind about it. One of the worst to go up, made worse because its a very prominent tower.

As far as the Met Life (still Pan Am to me), I've always liked it, mainly because of the way it straddles Park Avenue. And it's always been a buddy to the Chrysler. Put it on 6th Ave, and I like it less.


http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2079215/2112767/2127613/051017_arch_metlifeEX.jpg


http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/usb/misc/n/nya/detail/graphicny671029.jpg


http://www.mld.co.jp/photo/townscape/nyc/ny90-1.jpg

[lesterp4]

I for one love the Met Life building. For me it represents days gone by when New York was truly a place that encouraged prople to dream and be what they wanted to be. I don't think there is any room for that now. I aslo think when it was Pan Am it represented the international nature of NYC. I think the building I hate now is that ugly senior housing on 42nd street between 10th and 11th aves.

[Punzie]

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

Is this just for Manhattan, or can the other 4 boroughs join?

I, too, always liked the PanAm building.

[212]

Pam Am's signage was much more elegant than MetLife's, but I still like the building.

My most despised: the huge, blank, nearly windowless Verizon tower by the Brooklyn Bridge.
Close second: a similar Verizon atrocity on Tenth Avenue in Clinton.

[lbjefferies]

I love the Pan Am building. It is one of my favorite New York skyscrapers. And it's great in spite of the fact that there are two massive, horrible Park Avenue boxes flanking either side just to the north and preventing it from having the breathing room it deserves. I think they are occupied by Chase and JPMorgan and they are two of my least favorite towers in New York. Where were the NIMBYs when these POSs went up.

But no building in all of New York is as bad as the apartment building across from Lincoln Center. It actually makes me angry when i look at it.

[Viktorkrum77]

Is this just for Manhattan, or can the other 4 boroughs join?

I, too, always liked the PanAm building.

I suppose there's no harm, but the building should at least qualify as a skyscraper, or be higher than around 20 stories or so.

[ablarc]

But no building in all of New York is as bad as the apartment building across from Lincoln Center. It actually makes me angry when i look at it.
YES!! The one with the stupid angle. That one makes me mad too. It's right up there with Downtown's J.P. Morgan Building by Roche/Dinkeloo. Ugly as sin.

Pan Am is terrific. Too bad about the helicopters; too bad about the logo. But still terrific.

Nice they restored the lobby to its former plainness --although it would be nice to get some of the Bauhaus artwork back (some of it was so utilitarian that folks didn't even know it was art).

[ZippyTheChimp]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg

You can't avoid it.

[ablarc]

^ Its neighbors are just as bad. Skyline ruined.

[NYguy]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg

You can't avoid it.


It's the largest in the city, and I just hate it, along with it's brothers to the south, New York Plaza.

[BigMac]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
[img]http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg[img]

You can't avoid it.Did its renovated plaza ever become as popular as was hoped for?

As for ugliest building, Chase Manhattan would have to be a contender.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
I was there three times, and it seemed popular to me.

However, it's not a public space in the sense of Columbus Circle; it's more an area workforce amenity.

Easy to miss from the street, I guess it would be desolate on weekends.

[lofter1]

I've never been there during weekday lunch hours ...

The times I've been there I've never seen more than 5 others up top, and it's usually less than that.

It's a nice place on a summer day to loll around. But bring a bottle of water.

[lbjefferies]

YES!! The one with the stupid angle. That one makes me mad too.


The very one. Grrrrrr

[finnman69]

Do most New Yorkers still despise the Met Life building (formerly Pan Am building)? Is it still, to date, the most hated building in New York City?

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?
I dont mind the Met Life that much.

Times Square Westin with the orange and blue glass.

When the William Beaver condo is finished it may steal that title for being intentionally so obnoxious and awful.

[Viktorkrum77]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water

You can't avoid it.

Don't mind the architecture but the color is awful.

BTW does anyone happen to have a picture of this building across from the Lincoln Center? I can't find it anywhere on Google, but then again, I don't know it's name.

[H-man]

55 water is huge. must be like 3-3.5 million sq feet

[kz1000ps]

It's website has it listed at 3.8 msf. If I remember correctly, the structural bays are on a 25 ft grid, meaning it's 175 x 350 ft, and that makes for whopping 61,250 sq ft floor plates..!

[H-man]

thats massive.

[ZippyTheChimp]

As for ugliest building, Chase Manhattan would have to be a contender.
Well, it was the first ti disrupt the skyline.

Mid 1960s
http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/9799/skyline01chy6.jpg

[NoyokA]

thats massive.

And there's still 500,000 square feet of unused air-rights.

[millertime83]

Port Authority Bus Terminal and the windowless 40-storey tall Verizon Phone Substation in Lower Manhattan

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/6/61/350px-Port-authority-terminal.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/Pict0032a.jpg

[kliq6]

Yes, 375 pearl street is an ugly on, id say the worst in Lower Manhattan by far

[Harvick2933]

I never found myself disliking the MetLife Building over the years of me being a skyscraper enthusiast, nor did I ever find its dominance over its northern neighbor (Helmsley Building) offensive. It definitely enhances the Park Ave canyon effect and I just can't picture it being anywhere else in Midtown.

There are plenty of other buildings that are IMO junk in NYC. For example, I find the Westin Times Square and the "Zebra Building" in Clinton to be ridiculously tacky (The William Beaver will join those two once it's built). The cheap blocky apartment across Lincoln Center and the Corinthian also qualifies. Also, I find many of the newer residential buildings going up in NYC to be rather cookie-cutter and low-quality in design.

Civic Center also have many uglies, like the windowless fortress AT&T Long Line Building and the massive Javits Federal Building. Definitely some of the worst buildings in NYC. I actually don't mind the Verizon switching center by the Brooklyn Bridge though, since it actually have windows on its facade and it looks decent enough for a telecom fortress as compared to its NYC peers.

[Citytect]

Long Lines gets a lot of negative reactions, but I don't think it's all that terrible relatively speaking. I find it rather artfully done for such a utilitarian purpose. And when you take into account all the structural requirements for the building, it's hard to picture anything better. I find it surprising the building looks as good as it does and that such expensive cladding was used. My biggest complaint about the Long Lines building would be its unfortunate location.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I worked in that, and other telephone buildings in the city.

It's structurally similar to the windowed 32 6th Ave and Barclay buildings. All have thick floorplates and floor-to-floor heights 16 to 18 ft to accommodate tall equipment bays and overhead cable racks. One of the reasons for no windows was to reduce heat loss. The building was designed to capture and store the heat generated by the equipment. However, with technological changes at the time it was being built, the newer equipment generated much less heat. So it was always cold inside - just like a cave. :)

A waste of high-quality pink granite.

The windowless environment didn't bother me much until one day when I was on the roof and experienced the views.

[kz1000ps]

Long Lines gets a lot of negative reactions, but I don't think it's all that terrible relatively speaking. I find it rather artfully done for such a utilitarian purpose

Thank you. It's ugly, but it's one of those buildings that is so nasty that it captures the imagination and almost transcends ugliness, IMO. I have strong memories of it as a child, looking up and thinking of all the ominous things that surely are going on inside...(oh, the wires!). Even as late as 2001, when I was in my late teens, it still had a strong effect on me. Very evocative.

[Citytect]

A waste of high-quality pink granite.

I have to disagree. We're lucky cheap materials weren't used on the facade. When you have such vast blank walls, the cladding material has to be beautiful. Otherwise the building would look ugly AND cheap - not a good pair.

You said it, kz1000ps: evocative... Forlorn, menacing, but capable of stirring the imagination.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I have to disagree. We're lucky cheap materials weren't used on the facadeNot what I meant.

Many decent designs are compromised by cheap materials and shoddy construction. The opposite occurred at 33 Thomas.

The same technology advances that made it cold on the inside saved it from becoming a true hulk. The plaza is not a zoning bonus; what you see today is half a building. It was to extend out to Broadway with the address 323. The east facade was left unfinished for several years, the granite weathering in a New Jersey field, while a battle was waged to save 319 Broadway, built in 1869.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/Pict0034a.jpg

AT&T gave up and finished cladding the building. 319 was landmarked in 1989.

An earlier photo by Bernice Abbott gives a hint of what was lost on this block.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/071.jpg

Note the original 2nd floor facade has been restored.

The identical 317 Broadway was demolished in 1971 and replaced by a two story piece of junk that I think has always been a McDonald's.

[Citytect]

I didn't know that about the east facade, but I still don't understand why that makes it a waste of the granite. :confused: What's the alternative that you find less wasteful of the material?

[ZippyTheChimp]

I'm not implying that it would have been better not to waste good granite on this building.

It was a statement of irony. Often, good design is ruined by cheap materials, not usually the other way around.

[Citytect]

Oh, okay. I guess I focused too much on your use of the word waste.

[Joelio]

I've never been a particular fan of the Citicorp Center. You know, the one with the angles top and the four stilts that hold it up. The top part is fine, it's just the four *hideous* stilts I hate. Uuuurrrgh...

[pianoman11686]

^A relatively early example of community-forced compromise.

[ld876]

Marriot 39th and 6th, my opinion the ugliest and most wasted prime site out there

I think the Marriott Marquis is a pretty optimally wasted site (visually unappealing exterior, drab interior, great location). Times square needs a real high rise in the middle of it all. When was the last building constructed on Times Sq?

[Harvick2933]

I think the Marriott Marquis is a pretty optimally wasted site (visually unappealing exterior, drab interior, great location). Times square needs a real high rise in the middle of it all. When was the last building constructed on Times Sq?

That would be the Times Square Tower in 2004, rising behind 1 Times Square and putting the finishing touch on the process of framing the entire Times Square proper with skyscrapers all around. Not too long ago really...

But I guess if you mean a building that's directly on the Broadway-7th Ave junction, then I guess it's the W-Hotel, which is built in 2001. It's on the block between the Marriott Marquis and Morgan Stanley Tower.

[lofter1]

As for a building that actually FRONTS onto the open space of Times Square you'd probably have to look at the former Bertelsmann Building (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6DA163EF936A15757C0A9659582 60) -- completed in 1990 after many years of troubled construction (aka 1540 Broadway and home to Virgin Records):

http://www.newyorkarchitecture.info/NYAI/Images/Buildings/BertelsmannBuilding-001.jpg

[Jaffster]

What is the site right next to the W hotel?

[Bojangleman]

To be entirely honest, I think the Met life building is a monstrosity. I mean, it's sort of become ingrained in the city's psyche, and I've become so incredibly accostomed to looking at it, so it'd be a shame to see it torn down. But I still wish they would have made it a little less ugly back when they built it.

[lofter1]

The W Hotel block-front has the empty Howard Johnson's site, then a couple of old storefronts (one was originally the Broadway entrance to what is now the Lunt Fontanne Theater on W. 46th Street), the Roxy [?] Deli -- and then the Blue Fin Bar (which is part of the W Hotel and thereby technically makes the W Hotel a building that fronts onto TS -- but the tower is so hidden behind signage / scaffolding from TS that the tower appears to be a few lots to the west of TS).

And me thinks I mis-wrote earlier when I said the newest building to front onto TS is the former Bertellsman Building ...

Actually the newest could be the full-block building at the north end of TS which houses the Ramada Renaissance (and -- let's not forget -- the Olive Garden). Again this building is so covered with signs that the building itself makes little impression -- although I kind of like the hard-edged blackness of north & west facades. The signage facing onto TS is good. The canopy / marquis on the east side is a big Vegas-y mess. But the clock comes in handy when coming up from the N/R train ...

http://www.wynjade.com/nrf06/hotel_images/Renaissance.jpg

[Jaffster]

The scaffolding gave me the impression that something was going on there. It looks like the old buildings are being demolished.

[lofter1]

The scaffolding at the former Howard Johnson's site has been up for months -- but now that the new "No Ads on Scaffolding" regulations have gone into effect the scaffolding might have outlived its usefulness.

I'm not aware of any concrete plans for a new building on that site.

Anyone with the scoop on the NW corner of Broadway / W 46th?

[kliq6]

SL Green owns it and are planning a new Reatil store there, maybe a small office tower as well in the future

[stache]

I walked by it on 46th this evening, it's coming down.

[NoyokA]

Gridskipper:

Ugliest Buildings in New York, According to the Experts:

Of New York City's buildings, many are okay, some are beautiful and a few are horrifically ugly. Since derogations are always more fun than compliments and ugly more interesting than beautiful, we asked eleven architects, architect writers and various other sundry experts for their picks of the most god-awfully hideous edifices in New York City.

After the jump, Ma Bell gets ripped a new one and Donald Trump is so ugly that if ugly was bricks she'd have projects.

Ugliest Building: The Sculpture for Living
Expert: David Haskell, Executive Director Forum For Urban Design
Here's the only building in New York I think is painfully ugly: the Sculpture for Living. The high-end condo boom has produced other mistakes (see: Blue building), but those are not necessarily ugly--just misplaced, misguided and/or overwrought. The Astor place building, on the other hand, is bad from the ground up. Paul Goldberger's New Yorker review was too kind.

Ugliest Building: Citicorp Building, Leighton House Residential Tower
Expert: Mosette Broderick, Department head of architecture and urban planning at NYU
I might suggest the banal white tile clad Upper East Side apartment buildings built after the war. There are tons of them. Once known as "stewardess buildings" they are now condos. These buildings line First, Second and Third Avenues starting in the 70s. Then there are the sore thumbs that stand out badly like the Citibank building in Queens, or the building on 88th Street near First avenue which is triple the size of anything else around. Also, there are the office buildings of the 1950's and 60's on Sixth Avenue and especially Park Ave just above the Lever House. You have good at Lever and very bad across the street on 54th Street.

Ugliest Building: Museum of Art and Design, PanAm Building
Expert: Françoise Bollack, head architect of the firm Françoise Bollack Architects
I used to think the Mobil Building on 42nd street was ugly, but I've since changed my mind. That gives you a feeling of the transitory nature of our feelings. I have trepidation of the new Museum of Art and Design building at Columbus Circle. It was originally designed by Edward Stone and seems to be being defaced. However, this hasn't been unveiled yet so I will reserve my judgment. There are some banal buildings like the Trump Buildings. And there are some mid century ugly buildings like the Pan Am building.

Ugliest Building: Trump Buildings
Expert: John Beckmann, founder of architecture firm Axis Mundi
Anything with TRUMP on it is ugly. They're all equally bland, and it's too bad because he has the money to actually build something important. By he's not interested in architecture, only money and power.

Ugliest Building: 750 Seventh Ave
Expert: John Lumea, author of architecture blog Horizonr
The one that keeps springing to mind is 750 Seventh Ave, near Times Square -- a 35-story office building designed by Kevin Roche and completed in 1989. For a "developer building," it's probably a fair, albeit a little clunky and pedestrian, architectural response to its small island site. But the top, in particular, has that half-baked, cheap-ass quality of every front and rear-end that has rolled off a Detroit assembly line since, oh, 1972? And what's up with that sawed-off spire? It is possibly the most awkward, cumbersome, inelegant skyline presence of any tall building in the City.

Ugliest Building AT&T Long Lines Building
Expert: William Robinette, architecture graduate student at Columbia University
I've always thought the AT&T building down by Lafayette was unsightly. In trying to come up with reasons why it's ugly, I'm actually thinking it's pretty cool. I guess it's ugly because it's boring...if you were looking for a really terrifying building it would be great.

Ugliest Building:The Whitney Museum
Expert: Chad Smith, architect and writer, author of Tropolism
Sometimes I think ugly works, brilliantly. For example, the Whitney Museum is ugly, in the sense that it's raw concrete, windowless upper stories, and brutal anti-grav profile are very alien to most other buildings. But its brutality is what makes it wonderful--it's completely unlike the rest of the Upper East Side. The contrast, taken to its limit, is refreshing. And the way it meets the street, with the (technically innovative at the time) two-story glass windows that go from the ground level to the garden/cafe below, is simply brilliant, gracious, and, well, civic. It's not a building that it thumbing its nose to the city, but it's not trying to "match" either. So while I might describe it as ugly, it's also my favorite building in Manhattan. The best brutalist buildings do what the Whitney does: create a careful balance between material rawness and elegant connections. Needless to say, many brutalist buildings don't hit the mark: you need an architect as good as Breuer to pull it off.
Runners up: The Lipstick Building by Phillip Johnson and the Museum of Television and Radio.

Ugliest Building: The Theater Row Tower
Expert: Joey Arak, writer for Curbed
Easy. The Zebra. You come up from the tunnel, thrilled to be out of Jersey, and you're greeted by that monstrosity. Thank God it's a rental building, because the thought of anyone shelling out hard-earned cash to own a chunk of that beast makes me want to put a plastic bag over my head.

Ugliest Building: Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners
Expert: John Hill, author of architecture blog A Daily Dose of Architecture
The ugliest (recent) building in New York is Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners. How to obliterate history in five easy steps: Step 1: Hire Norman Foster. Step 2: Sit back and wait while Lord Foster channels R. Buckminster Fuller and designs a "diagrid" exterior wall. Step 3: Land the new 46-story tower on and in a 1928, six-story historical landmark, but be sure to keep the existing, two-dimensional exterior walls and clean 'em until they look like a molded plastic model. Step 4: Don't bother to give the building any sense of entry, and go ahead and make the grand lobby space inaccessible to the public while you're at it. Step 5: Market the sustainable aspects of the tower to gloss over its ugly and hulking presence on the skyline.

Ugliest Building: The Cross Bronx Expressway.
Expert: John Massengale, architect, architecture author, founding member of Congress for the New Urbanism
Five "anti-uglies":The Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, Otto Kahn Mansion, Shively Sanitary Tenements, and Park Slope. The last, of course, is not a building but a neighborhood, but the beauty of New York, or any city, is in how the buildings go together. For the worst, I would pick not a building but the Cross Bronx Expressway, a supremely ugly, anti-urban structure. In some parts of the city, it's exactly like the Berlin Wall, but uglier.

Ugliest Building: The AT&T Headquarters (now the Sony Building), The Freedom Tower
Expert: Jason Van Nest, intern architect
Here a skyscraper crafted at the scale of the city was likened, or reduced to a simple piece of furniture with a Chippendale top. It caused a stir because the crowning detail was interpreted as a blithe gesture, an act of nonchalance that everyone in Midtown is forced to confront on their daily walk. Instead, one would hope that architecture should inspire loftier aspirations than these casual, reductive analogies. With the Freedom Tower, critiques run well ahead of construction because it's simultaneously viewed as a failure of Architecture to represent or address the spirit of the times; a failure of our city to address the needs of its people; and a portrait of corporate greed being the strongest voice shaping public space downtown.

[ablarc]

^ Experts, schmexperts.

[lofter1]

Ugly = Beauty ...


Ugliest Building: The Whitney Museum

Expert: Chad Smith, architect and writer, author of Tropolism

Sometimes I think ugly works, brilliantly ... the Whitney Museum is ugly ... raw concrete, windowless upper stories, and brutal anti-grav profile are very alien ... its brutality is what makes it wonderful ... the way it meets the street ... two-story glass windows that go from the ground level to the garden/cafe below, is simply brilliant, gracious, and, well, civic. It's not a building that it thumbing its nose to the city, but it's not trying to "match" either ... while I might describe it as ugly, it's also my favorite building in Manhattan ... Needless to say, many brutalist buildings don't hit the mark: you need an architect as good as Breuer to pull it off.

[Bob]

Philip Johnson's AT&T Building is actually quite good, although its location couldn't have been worse. The lobby was really spectacular when it included the so-called "Golden Boy," which as we all should know was moved out some time ago.

As for the Pan Am building, I realize everybody has his/her own tastes. I just happen to really like it.

[Harvick2933]

Ugliest Building: The Theater Row Tower
Expert: Joey Arak, writer for Curbed
Easy. The Zebra. You come up from the tunnel, thrilled to be out of Jersey, and you're greeted by that monstrosity. Thank God it's a rental building, because the thought of anyone shelling out hard-earned cash to own a chunk of that beast makes me want to put a plastic bag over my head.

Joey Arak hit the nail on the head with his comment about this McSam-quality monster. Easily the worst building to grace the NYC skyline. Unfortunately, Sam Chang and Gene Kaufman just have to like it so much that they are building other smaller monstrosities just like it all across Manhattan...

[lofter1]

To put the rightful blame where it belongs ...

420 W. 42nd Street

Theater Row Tower

Architect: PETER CLAMAN / SCHUMAN LICHTENSTEIN CLAMAN EFRON

Other work: 125 West 31st Street (The Epic) - Wired New York Forum (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3321)

[BrooklynRider]

They are a mainstay of NYC residential tower design. Alot of NYC - specially upper west side buildings are SLCE.