New Columbus Circle

[Stern]

After more than a year of studies, the City administration announced that the new traffic configuration at Columbus Circle -- aimed at taming vehicular traffic and giving more space back to pedestrians -- proved more successful than anticipated. The new configuration follows the actual circle and allows for a center space close to 180 feet in diameter, as well as substantially widened surrounding sidewalks. The traffic studies concluded that this layout works--for cars, for pedestrians and for bicyclists.

The NYC Parks Department implemented an interim design for the Circle's center space that creates a welcoming oasis of seasonal plantings, seating and an improved paving surface. The Society praised the interim plan in letters to Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and City Planning Chairman Joseph Rose, but we called upon the City to add a crosswalk between the center circle and the Merchant's Gate entrance to Central Park. This would make pedestrian access between the two destinations safer and easier.

After an extensive RFP process, the City selected the engineering firm Vollmar Associates and the design firm McCobb and Associates to develop a permanent new design for Columbus Circle. When their plans met opposition from community groups, civic organizations, community boards and city agencies, the City hired the Olin Partnership in the Spring of 2002 to develop a proposed scheme for the re-design of the public space at Columbus Circle. The MAS has advocated that Columbus Circle become one of the great civic spaces of the world, and that a world-class design be created for this site. In l997, the MAS invited six prominent designers to propose designs for the circle; these results were published in a special issue of The Livable City entitled "Full Circle: Invited Designs for Columbus Circle. The Olin Partnership, in conjunction with Machado Silvetti, formed a team for this consultation. A selection from their proposal is pictured left.

The Department of City Planning is currently presenting the Olin Partnership design to the Tri-Board Task Force on Columbus Circle, the MAS and other interested civic groups. On September 9th, 2002, the Art Commission held the first public hearing on the Olin Partnership proposal, where the MAS delivered testimony.

Once the design is approved, the City hopes to begin construction in the Spring of 2003.

[Stern]

http://www.mas.org/ContentLibrary/machado.jpg

[Derek2k3]

I never thought they would build it.

The Olin Partnership/Machado Silvetti
http://images.fotki.com/v11/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal1MachadoSilvettiAssociates-vi.jpg?1038668837
http://images.fotki.com/v11/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal13MachadoSilvettiAssociates-vi.jpg?1038668848 http://images.fotki.com/v11/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal8MachadoSilvettiAssociates-vi.jpg?1038668857

I liked this one by Rafael Vinoly.
http://images.fotki.com/v11/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal7RafaelVinoly-vi.jpg?1038668862 http://images.fotki.com/v11/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal5RafaelVinoly-vi.jpg?1038668868
http://images.fotki.com/v10/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal4RafaelVinoly-vi.jpg?1038668873 http://images.fotki.com/v10/free/97aa/3/39399/162597/ColumbusCircleProposal3RafaelVinoly-vi.jpg?1038668878

[NYatKNIGHT]

Wow, these are some ambitious designs. Columbus Circle could be one hell of an intersection in the not too distant future.

To view the designs in pdf format, go here:
http://www.mas.org/ContentLibrary/Liveable_City_4.q_wo_b.pdf

[enzo]

Very nice! I wonder though if that canopy will interfere with the views from Jazz@Lincoln Cntr at AOL/TW?

[Edward]

From the 1/19/03 NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/19/realestate/19COV.html

At the same time, however, they will gain a renovated and relandscaped Columbus Circle, under a $21 million project designed by the Olin Partnership. It is obviously in the developer's interest to raise Columbus Circle from what the landscape architect Laurie D. Olin described as its malformed current state. "It's the kind of public-private partnership you hope will happen,"

Mr. Olin said. His design will reinforce the geometry of the circle with a new fountain around the Columbus Monument, an inner ring of yellow buckeye trees, a landscaped berm, an outer ring of honey locusts and concentric decorative paving.

[Kris]

http://www.machado-silvetti.com/projects/all/columbus2/68_columbus2-1.jpg

http://www.machado-silvetti.com/projects/all/columbus2/main.html

[Edward]

A $21 million project designed by the Olin Partnership to renovate and relandscape Columbus Circle is under way.

Mr. Olin's design will reinforce the geometry of the circle with a new fountain around the Columbus Monument, an inner ring of yellow buckeye trees, a landscaped berm, an outer ring of honey locusts and concentric decorative paving.

20 May 2003.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/guide/columbus_circle/columbus_circle_aol_20may03.jpg

[Kris]

It's too bad they didn't select a more urbane option.

[Zoe]

I'm confused. *Are they just adding more plants and a fountain or are they going to put up that elevated circular thing as in Christian's picture?

[Kris]

What Edward described.

[Kris]

http://www.rion.nu/v5/post/120503/IMG_9649lg.jpg
http://www.rion.nu/v5/post/120503/IMG_9670lg.jpg

http://www.rion.nu/v5/archive/000427.php

[emmeka]

Wow, I have never heared of this before. Is it like a huge glass cylindar or is it just like an elevated glass canopy?

I think that it looks good along with time warner, the area looks like a space-age-tecno space centre or something.

[krulltime]

Anybody knows when this project is going to be finish? I really like this project.

[ZippyTheChimp]

What Edward described!

[Edward]

http://www.nypost.com/realestate/18827.htm
WORK ZONE IS COLUM-BUST FOR VIEW FROM TW CENTER
By STEVE CUOZZO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 24, 2004 -- RELATED Cos. chief Stephen M. Ross wants to know why, after his company spent $1.7 billion to build Time Warner Center and open it on time, dug-up Columbus Circle outside its front door is such a mess.
"We've asked for a task force meeting with the city," Ross said yesterday. "We need a meeting to see why it's having to take so long. Right now, it's beyond me."

The city's Department of Design and Construction says the $20 million reconstruction of the traffic circle and its center island is on schedule, due to be finished by year's end. Only the planting of perennials must wait until spring.

When the job is done, the island that's home to the Christopher Columbus statue will be graced by pretty landscaping and three graceful fountains. But for now, it's a ground zero-like pit full of machinery and ringed by concrete barriers.

It isn't what shops like Joseph Abboud and J. Crew, which broke with custom by agreeing to have giant windows give shoppers a view of the outdoors, were expecting.

And it's hard not to sympathize with Ross' annoyance. The city, under two different mayors, knew that Time Warner Center was to be completed this winter ever since Related bought the land from the MTA in the summer of 2000.

What sort of welcome did the long-awaited edifice, with a Mandarin Oriental Hotel, luxury condos and Time Warner's new world headquarters, enjoy? Besides the circle's reconstruction, it's ringed by treacherous pedestrian crossings, street excavations on Broadway and Central Park West, and the crumbling eyesore at 2 Columbus Circle.

Pedestrians trying to reach Time Warner Center from various approaches must make their way through one of Manhattan's most daunting traffic zones.

The most dangerous approach is from the point where Broadway meets Central Park South. There is no traffic signal at the corner. Unless they walk to West 58th Street, pedestrians must traverse an unguarded crosswalk vulnerable to southbound auto and bus traffic that doesn't always slow down.

The crosswalk takes strollers to the little spit of land that is home to 2 Columbus Circle, which announces the start of Midtown at Time Warner Center's feet. The Museum of Arts & Design hopes to take title to the long-empty hulk by summer and make its new home there after a sensitive redesign by architect Brad Cloepfil.

But the eagerly-awaited transfer is tied up in court by preservationist zealots who don't want its severe, windowless front wall replaced. Meanwhile, the wretched Edward Durrell Stone structure appears to deteriorate with every passing week. Derelicts lurk under a sidewalk bridge that rings the building's base like a noose.

After the city failed time and again to sell it - rejecting offers from Donald Trump and the Dahesh Museum among others - the Bloomberg administration last year touted its planned sale to the design museum.

Officials at the Economic Development Corp. say they're still working with museum execs to finalize terms. EDC spokesperson Janel Patterson said, "If all goes well with the suit, we hope to close by summer."

Museum director Holly Hotchner said through a spokesman, "The museum has raised the funds to purchase the building from the city and renovate it. Construction will begin once the museum has taken title, which will be after the lawsuit is settled. A hearing before a judge is scheduled for this Friday."

Meanwhile, if you're walking to Time Warner Center, be sure to look both ways.

[Edward]

The view of Columbus Circle and the statue of Columbus from The Shops at Columbus Circle (http://www.wirednewyork.com/aol/shops_columbus_circle.htm) on 5 February 2004.


http://www.wirednewyork.com/manhattan/columbus_circle/columbus_circle_5feb04.jpg

[krulltime]

8) Very nice indeed...

[krulltime]

From Christian Wieland

http://www.machado-silvetti.com/projects/all/columbus2/68_columbus2-1.jpg

http://www.machado-silvetti.com/projects/all/columbus2/main.html

Although this design was really interesting to me...oh well too bad :|

[Kris]

http://www.olinptr.com/images/project_image_columbuscircle1.gif

The design intent for Columbus Circle returns the historic monument to public access and appreciation, fostering an environment not present for a generation. The proposed design has been conceived to make the site a safe and attractive addition to the public realm of New York City at one of the principal entries to Central Park and the intersection of three significant streets: Broadway, Eight Avenue and 59th Street. The design features – paving, planting, fountains, seating and lighting – all reinforce the simple idea that Columbus Circle is unique in the City.

The island consists of a series of concentric rings that buffer the traffic and provide a pleasant pedestrian environment for the monument, consisting of a broad, gently raised area of planting, a series of fountains, paving, benches and lights. On the outer perimeter, a ring of raised stone cobbles provides an emerging pedestrian refuge adjacent to the outer vehicular lane, which, in winter, can also accept piles of snow and salt without damage to planting. Next, a ring of colorful low plantings is formed, which can be changed and replenished seasonally. This is encircled by evergreen shrubs, placed to enhance the floral display, and a ring of trees standing in evergreen groundcovers, underplanted with spring bulbs.

Proposed American Yellow Buckeye frame axial views to the historic monument, while providing a partial enclosure in the form of a circular room, in the center of which stands the monument. New benches, scaled to complement the civic space, are to be made of curved wood, designed to be large enough to allow individuals and groups to sit comfortably back to back, facing either the active water and planting or the monument.

The small fountain currently surrounding the monument base is to be removed, allowing the column base to sit firmly on the ground as the central feature of the circle. People will once more be able to approach the monument, to read the inscriptions, and to study the relief sculptures on the base more easily than in recent decades. To replace the loss of the central fountain, new basins are to be created that encircle the central open area. More generous than the former basin and shaped as a series of concentric ledges to form cascades with arching jets towards the center, the new fountains will reinforce the circular design and primacy of the monument, while masking the noise of the traffic and tempering the climate in summer. The fountain is designed to form a series of bleacher seats which, when turned off, avoid the forlorn character of so many empty fountain bases in the City, visible during the colder months.

It is the intent of these simple gestures to make obvious the importance of this civic space and monument, and to return it to the citizens and visitors of New York City as an inviting celebratory place. It is a place to pause and refresh oneself in the midst of one of the busiest intersections in the metropolis – a foyer to Central Park, an event on Broadway, and a handsome scene for those who live, work and visit this great city.

http://www.olinptr.com/project_current_urban2.html

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0404/ob/ColumbusCircle3.jpg
http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0404/ob/ColumbusCircle2.jpg

Discreet Landscapes (http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0404/ob/ob01_0404.html)
Laurie Olin’s graceful greenspaces are also secret security systems.

[Eugenius]

It looks great.

My only concern is that the fountains are too close to the benches if the wind conditions are anything but calm, you are going to see people getting hit by the spray coming from the fountains.

[nike]

Has construction of the ring been cancelled.

[Stern]

Has construction of the ring been cancelled.

Yes.

[BigMac]

I'm glad; I prefer Olin's design.

[Kris]

August 1, 2004

WEST SIDE

Which Way Is Out? Solving the Riddle of the Circle

STEVEN KURUTZ

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/08/01/nyregion/thecity/20040801_circle.jpg

PERHAPS the best spot from which to view the construction that has overtaken Columbus Circle is not at ground level, but from the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, 35 stories above the city in the Time Warner Center, where this eastward-looking photograph was taken.

From this lofty vantage, the entire site is laid out in precise, almost elegant detail: the improvised traffic lanes that shift to accommodate construction; the beginnings of what will be the wide outer ring; the steady procession of taxis, cars and heavy machinery around the Columbus monument.

The $15 million renovation that will transform Columbus Circle is nearing the end of the heavy work phase. By mid-August, roadwork is expected to be completed and crews will move inside the circle to install a three-tiered fountain and to plant trees and other greenery. Matthew Monahan, a spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction, said the city plans to complete the project by year's end.

For pedestrians and drivers who have withstood untold nuisances from pounding jackhammers and rumbling trucks, that prospect is welcome news.

Which brings us to another reason that the view from the Mandarin is so spectacular: Up here, the only sound is the gentle whir of the air-conditioning.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[matt3303]

Finally Columbus Circle will look more like the important place it is. It's always a good thing when the city replaces concrete with greenery. And thank God they scrapped that glass ring.

[krulltime]

It looks like work as usual on the circle:

http://www.pbase.com/image/32192148.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/32192138.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/image/32192128.jpg

[RedFerrari360f1]

When is work expected to be complete?

[ZippyTheChimp]

Nice view from the monument down 8th.

From the article:
The $15 million renovation that will transform Columbus Circle is nearing the end of the heavy work phase. By mid-August, roadwork is expected to be completed and crews will move inside the circle to install a three-tiered fountain and to plant trees and other greenery. Matthew Monahan, a spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction, said the city plans to complete the project by year's end.

[billyblancoNYC]

Thank God. I still think it's a shame that this mess is there when TWC is up. It should have been done in tandem. Oh well, better late than never.

[NYatKNIGHT]

The project "should be complete by the end of the year", when the weather will be too cold to plant anything or run the fountain.

[Edward]

They started reconstruction in what - May 2003? - almost 2 years - that's a long time for a fountain. 10 March 2005. The view from One Central Park.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/manhattan/columbus_circle/columbus_circle.jpg

[BrooklynRider]

There are large area, outside the edge of the fountain, that encircles the tower, which covered in white plastic. From the street it, it appears peaple can walk in it. Anyone have any ideas what it might be?

[fioco]

In Post #20 (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=26745&postcount=20), Kris included text and images from the Olin Partnership website. The central fountain has been removed and will be replaced by concentric circles that contain fountains, plantings and a ring of trees. Perhaps what you noticed is a winterized work area to protect the plumbing, etc., during construction.

[Edward]

Im still waiting for the DOT Traffic Cams (http://nyctmc.org/xmanhattan.asp) to start working again at Columbus Circle, does anyone know what the staus of the construction in the middle is?
(http://nyctmc.org/xmanhattan.asp)
--------------

[Derek2k3]

I was there that same exact day too...unless fires were a common thing.

[NYatKNIGHT]

The wall is down.

[macreator]

And what a difference it makes! Now if we can just get some trees and shrubs planted almost everything will be perfect at Columbus Circle. Hopefully the redesign of 2 Columbus doesn't take too long.

[jp1]

what exactly are the spray-painted arrows doing pointing downward on the Columbus Column?

[sirhcman]

what exactly are the spray-painted arrows doing pointing downward on the Columbus Column?

Pretty sure they are anchors....

[RandySavage]

The redesigned Columbus Circle is now open to pedestrians. Construction is not quite finished as there is still work being done on the fountains (they were not operating when I went by).

[RedFerrari360f1]

and the anchors arent spray painted on...

[BigMac]

Posted by Lockart on curbed (May 3):

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005_05_cc1.jpg

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005_05_cc2.jpg

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005_05_cc3.jpg

Posted by WhatISee on WhatISee.org (May 27):

http://whatisee.org/mt/archives/images/columbuscircle.jpg

[londonlawyer]

Due to poor landscaping, it currently looks like crap. The trees look anemic, and the bushes look messy. This is extremely disappointing, and it's pathetic that it took so long to build. It has potential though... It just needs good trees now (rather than waiting 15 years for them to grow) and to put in flowers (as in the renderings), rather than the scraggly bushes.

They should also put back the fountain that surrounded the monument. Just because a new fountain was added doesn't require getting rid of the old one.

[Fabrizio]

Great without a fountain. Eliminate the easy popular-choice trees and flowers. Plant perfectly manicured lawn and low bushes. A clean, elegant wide-open, piazza-like space. Serious and minimal.

[TonyO]

NY Sun
6/28/05

Two Years and $20M Later, Traffic-Plagued Columbus Circle Near Completion

By DAVID LOMBINO, Special to the Sun

Soon, for a time at least, the circle will be unbroken.

The eternally clogged intersection at Columbus Circle seems to have been under construction forever. After two years and $20 million, however, the latest of its construction projects is essentially complete, slightly late but slightly under budget. A ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg is being planned for later this summer.

The circle, at the southwestern corner of Central Park, was enlarged, landscaped, and outfitted with a high-tech fountain that encircles the monument. The surrounding streets were rebuilt with new sidewalks, curbs, lights, water mains, and sewers.

"This was not our everyday project," the assistant commissioner of the city's Department of Design and Construction, Evans Doleyres, said. "Our normal problems were magnified tenfold." The agency oversees and executes city construction projects.

The project was scheduled for completion in late 2004, but builders had to reroute traffic from six major thoroughfares, carve an underground control room the size of an apartment into a bed of solid underground rock, and juggle jurisdictions with an alphabet soup of city agencies.

Stakeholders included the departments of transportation and environmental protection, Con Edison, New York City Transit, Parks and Recreation, the Central Park Conservancy, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Art Commission, the Municipal Art Society, local community boards, and the big construction project next door: the $1.7 billion Time Warner Center.

Last to be completed is a fountain with two concentric rings of arching water, which was developed by WET Design, the team that built the fountains at Las Vegas's Bellagio Hotel and Casino and the Brooklyn Museum. An underground computer coordinates the sequencing of water spurts, adjusting for wind changes, and is connected by modem to the designer's office in Los Angeles.

Long, curved benches made from ipe, a tropical hardwood, surround the basin.

"When you go in there, hopefully the noise of the city will be drowned out. The water is a clue that you are in a special place," a representative of the landscape architecture firm Olin Partnership, Allan Spulecki, said. "The center emanates out, becoming a bull's-eye in an urban center. Columbus Circle is in a very special spot in New York."

The monument is the point where distances to and from the city are officially measured.

The 40-foot marble monument of Columbus, by the Sicilian sculptor Gaetano Russo, was erected in 1892, the 400th anniversary of the explorer's journey to what became America.

In 1991, the statue was restored in preparation for its centennial, and seven years later, the city turned Columbus Circle into a real circle, changing traffic configuration, improving pedestrian access, replanting, and installing benches. The current project began in 2003.

Its completion, however, will not forever banish the orange cones. The statue is to undergo another restoration before Columbus Day this October, and the Museum of Art and Design hopes to proceed this fall with its controversial plan to renovate and move into the "lollipop motif" building, designed by Edward Durell Stone, at 2 Columbus Circle.

[lofter1]

NY Sun, 6/28/05

Traffic-Plagued Columbus Circle Near Completion

The circle, at the southwestern corner of Central Park, was enlarged, landscaped, and outfitted with a high-tech fountain that encircles the monument.

Last to be completed is a fountain with two concentric rings of arching water, which was developed by WET Design, the team that built the fountains at Las Vegas's Bellagio Hotel and Casino and the Brooklyn Museum.

I stepped over the yellow tape and between the cones the other day to take a look -- maybe when the trees get bigger and the water is running it will have some life.

Skateboarders seem to love it -- about 6 guys were doing tricks on every available edge and surface. They've already left their marks (tell-tale signs being the streaks along the stone edges of the "fountain" and entry portals).

And I hope they figure out some other solution to the current bank of yellow & black arrow signs that flank the southern edge. Really horrifying. Why didn't the designers / DOT consider the necessity of directional signage and work it into the design?

[krulltime]

Due to poor landscaping, it currently looks like crap. The trees look anemic, and the bushes look messy. This is extremely disappointing, and it's pathetic that it took so long to build. It has potential though... It just needs good trees now (rather than waiting 15 years for them to grow) and to put in flowers (as in the renderings), rather than the scraggly bushes.

They should also put back the fountain that surrounded the monument. Just because a new fountain was added doesn't require getting rid of the old one.

Yes I don't see anything to be excited about with this new landscaping.... Is just boring looking.

[BrooklynRider]

Okay, I'm a greasy Italian man (in the nicest sense of those words) and when I get home my face has acted like a magnet to every grain of soot, diesel exhaust and dirt particle floating around the air (you get the visual?).

As much as I admire the aesthetic aspirations for this circle of cement with the giant studded dildo sticking out of it, I must wonder (out loud - right here with you) how filthy will my face get spending, say, fifteen minutes in that eddie of exhaust and fumes?

[RandySavage]

I agree that because the trees are young and spindly (and there are no bush or hedge plantings in between them), the circle currently looks pretty bare. I've also seen teenagers climb all over the statue column and sitting on the pediment like it's some kind of jungle gym.

However, this Bellagio fountain sounds like it could be really cool, so I will reserve judgement until it is officially complete.

[krulltime]

http://www.machado-silvetti.com/projects/all/columbus2/68_columbus2-1.jpg

Oh the good old days....

I knew something was intersting fresh about this design. Its call 'creativity'

[TLOZ Link5]

Okay, I'm a greasy Italian man (in the nicest sense of those words) and when I get home my face has acted like a magnet to every grain of soot, diesel exhaust and dirt particle floating around the air (you get the visual?).

As much as I admire the aesthetic aspirations for this circle of cement with the giant studded dildo sticking out of it, I must wonder (out loud - right here with you) how filthy will my face get spending, say, fifteen minutes in that eddie of exhaust and fumes?

That was my real-life LOL moment of the day.

[ZippyTheChimp]

The fountains really do kill the traffic noise.

http://img288.imageshack.us/img288/6849/colcircle101pf.th.jpg (http://img288.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcircle101pf.jpg)

[ablarc]

You tantalize with a beautiful photo, Zippy, but I still can't tell what the experience of new Columbus Circle is. How about some more pics?

[ZippyTheChimp]

That's the only photo. The benches along the fountain pools need to be in place to get an accurate view of how the public will engage the space. I plan a return visit next weekend.

At the moment, the stepped base of the monument is the only place to sit.

The space will not be a shady grove, an impression given by the overhead renderings. If there are too many trees, they would eventually form a canopy, and the monument would be visually lost from outside the circle.

When the outer ring of plantings are about three feet high, traffic will be screened from view.

Stay tuned.

[lofter1]

My only concern is that the fountains are too close to the benches if the wind conditions are anything but calm, you are going to see people getting hit by the spray coming from the fountains.
On a hot summer day that spray could be just the right answer.

[Clarknt67]

I took a walk there on Saturday. I agree, the trees are pretty sad looking. They look like they'll need at least another decade to grow to a size appropriate to the place. Why didn't they just spring for more mature trees?

[ZippyTheChimp]

As it was once explained to me:

A percentage of transplanted trees do not survive, because 90% of the root system is lost, and the tree is under great stress until it can reestablish the proper ratio of tree size to root system. As trees mature, the roots grow horizontally, so an older tree will lose more of its roots during the transplant, and it will take longer than a younger tree to stabilize.

The transplant needs constant attention during this time, something it is not going to get in an urban traffic environment. That is why younger, more resilient trees are selected.

[ablarc]

^ What you say is true, as far as it goes. And unimpeachably true in all particulars in a low-maintenance, low-care environment such as you might expect these days from city workers in Columbus Circle.

Here's another scenario from a different time and place: When New York's Olmsted Brothers were hired to lay out Charlotte's Forest Hills-like streetcar suburb of Myers Park, they found themselves close to the forest edge. There they found a tangle of magnificent willow oaks striving lankily toward the light.

They harvested the 40 to 60 foot trees and lopped off the sparse lower branches, then hauled the trees by mule team and planted them in close-spaced rows along all streets in their new subdivision. In short order these magnificent, vertically-proportioned forest trees expanded horizontally to form canopied streets that remind onlookers of Gothic church vaults.

Beneath this verdant canopy, summer temperatures are usually 5 degrees lower. Visitors invariably exclaimed about the magnificent visual order of this single-species tree canopy, which gave Charlotte its unique character. They had never seen anything like it; the closest thing was the allees of Versailles.

Either the survival rate was high due to loving care, or the trees were replaced as they died, because until about 15 years ago, the canopy was both complete and even, with trees of similar girth and height.

Then the city foolishly hired a second New York landscape consultant, who advised the city that good disaster planning for possible future diseases called for a varied tree cover in case a disease struck the willow oaks. This lamentable policy was adopted, and Charlotte has been losing its unique character ever since, as the magnificent willow oaks are culled (supposedly the less healthy ones are removed first) and replaced either with a variety of species or with smallish, store-bought willow oaks with their nursery-bred conical shape.

Every year Charlotte looks less like Charlotte. It still has trees, but so does Toledo.



Conventional wisdom.

[Clarknt67]

The transplant needs constant attention during this time, something it is not going to get in an urban traffic environment. That is why younger, more resilient trees are selected.

Of course that makes sense but it still rather boggles the mind that, what $5 Billion dollars can be spent to build the TWC but they skimp on the landscaping? It really would serve the area better to have bit the bullet, there aren't THAT many trees, a dozen?

[TLOZ Link5]

An instant hangout spot, comparable to the Pulitzer Fountain at Grand Army Plaza. I just wish that the trees were more mature, and when I was there for the first time there was a lot of water on the ground. Anyone think that the fountains leak?

[Fabrizio]

I´d like to see the circle without trees. I think it would look more sophisticated.

[czsz]

An instant hangout spot

It seems like too much of an effort to cross the circle deliberately just to hang out, especially as the southwestern gate of Central Park and the entrance to the TWC just adjacent are both more accessible and already extremely popular in that regard. Maybe putting a subway entrance in the circle would have enlivened it, and create enough pedestrian flow across the circle to entice those otherwise too perturbed by the obstacle of the traffic.

[lofter1]

It seems like too much of an effort to cross the circle deliberately just to hang out
When the traffic is stopped by the red lights it takes all of 15-30 seconds to cross into the circle. That's less time than crossing from TWC across B'way + CPW to Central Park.

[TLOZ Link5]

It seems like too much of an effort to cross the circle deliberately just to hang out, especially as the southwestern gate of Central Park and the entrance to the TWC just adjacent are both more accessible and already extremely popular in that regard. Maybe putting a subway entrance in the circle would have enlivened it, and create enough pedestrian flow across the circle to entice those otherwise too perturbed by the obstacle of the traffic.

Grand Army Plaza faces the same dubious traffic and contextual obstacles that Columbus Circle does, by your logic; yet it is a successful public space and an integral part of the city's fabric. It directly abuts, yet is not part of, Central Park: providing a respite from the city without creating the illusion of having actually left it. The first time I went to the newly completed Columbus Circle, there were dozens of people hanging around — and this was around 11pm on a weeknight.

[ablarc]

More pictures, please.

[ZippyTheChimp]

OK

http://img131.imageshack.us/img_viewer_framed.php?loc=img131&image=colcircle045xy.jpg&gal=img131/5298/colcircle045xy.jpg

[pianoman11686]

Judging by the clear sky and the relatively low number of people, I'd say you were there around...10 am?

[GVNY]

It's not bad. Certainly an improvement.

[ablarc]

Thanks for the photos of the new Circle treatment, Zippy.

It's not bad. Certainly an improvement.
That’s about it; faint praise.

We waited for years for this?

It’s better now than ever before, but Columbus Circle has had a rocky road to its present incarnation.

In 1920, streetcars paraded through on their way to Times Square. The high-rise must have made a nice visual terminus for Central Park South, as the gap in TWC does now. There seemed a lot of pavement to cross. Lonely on its tiny block, stood a mansarded precursor of Stone’s presently threatened 2 Columbus Circle; for decades until the TWC came along, that little gem alone proclaimed the circularity of this intersection grown amorphous.

In the more enlightened twenties, however, the Circle’s buildings more or less agreed on its roundness, even the two-story pipsqueaks. Of these, the almost-triangular structure at Broadway and Central Park West was another one of those low-rise skyscraper bases that Hearst was in the habit of abandoning about the city; when this Tudor terra-cotta building came down for the Gulf and Western (now Trump) Building, it was found to have sufficient steel structure to support a tower. This one bit the dust, while Foster is augmenting the other (though without retaining its anticipatory structure). Are there more of these secreted somewhere about town?

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/1920.jpg

At street level, the Circle seemed respectable enough in the early Twenties, and perhaps surprisingly placid; streetcars don’t intimidate quite like a yellow wall of cabs, and even the innermost circle enjoyed the company of pedestrians, though not yet a fountain:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/20a.jpg
Sporty car, nifty subway kiosks in traffic island, good price on cigarettes.

At night, the high-rise seemed strangely post-Modern; the south-facing façade vaguely Dutch:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/20b.jpg

Unsurprisingly, it was called the Circle Building:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/20c.jpg

By 1933, some modest skyscrapers had lounged onto the scene. The billboards almost rivaled Times Square, there were still plenty of row houses, and Irwin Chanin’s glitzy Century Apartments were brand new:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/1933.jpg

In 1938, the Hearst building sported a Coca Cola sign to rival Times Square’s, and the Mayflower Hotel still had its ornament:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/1938.jpg

By 1946, 240 Central Park South had arrived on the scene, and row houses were growing scarcer:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/1946.jpg

With his usual zeal for the banal and his wooden eye, Robert Moses replaced the vaguely-Dutch high-rise with the Coliseum, a lump that trashed its surroundings for decades. It denied the Circle and it denied the axis of Central Park South. Denied it? More like: stopped it dead in its tracks with a big blank wall. For a Modernist, it was an article of faith that if something was liked by the Beaux-Arts it just had to be bad. Apply that thinking and you can see why most architects didn’t lift a finger to prevent Penn Station’s demise.

The organically distorted Circle now featured roadways cleaving meaningless interstitial spaces, parked cars, and even little suburban patches of grass. Perhaps out of guilt, the new Gulf and Western Building provided a circle of its own, a new subway entrance. G+W replaced the lowly Hearst skyscraper base, and assisted in the Circle’s dissolution with a narrow face to the circle –-so narrow, in fact, that it exceeded a prudent slenderness ratio and swayed in the wind until new owner Donald Trump engaged Philip Johnson to imagineer it as a hotel. This now came complete with a 3-D circle in the form of a globe:

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/80a.jpg
1980’s

Until quite recently, only Stone’s little folly believed in the Circle. That’s one of the traits that makes it a pioneer of post-Modernism.

.

[Citytect]

Wow. Great images.

[expose05]

the statue at columbus circle had a lot of soot in the 20's :(

[lofter1]

ablarc: you're a terrific resource for those of us who love nyc...thanks for all the great info you provide.

[sfenn1117]

Fantastic post ablarc.

While it's nothing extraordinary it definitely looks great. I love the old pics! The site of the TWC sure has changed a lot, but now it's perfect.

[Fabrizio]

Wow! those are great photos... things I´ve never seen before. I love the circle in the early shots. I like the statue plunked down there in the middle of a flat circle with no trees and stuff.... add cobble stones and it could be a circle in Milan. I think the problem today is that urban designers go way overboard with all the friendly accoutrements, so afraid of austerety... they´ve got to squeeze in lawns and bushes, flowers, fountains, trees, steps, seating...it can all get very dumbed down looking.

[billyblancoNYC]

Man, I hate to say it, but NYC back in the day was a more picturesque city in a lot of ways than it is today.

[BrooklynRider]

Picturesque as it was. Envision all of that in 95 degree humid weather wearing the dress of the day: three pice suits and hats with no airconditioining anywhere.

Not a pretty picture.

[billyblancoNYC]

Picturesque as it was. Envision all of that in 95 degree humid weather wearing the dress of the day: three pice suits and hats with no airconditioining anywhere.

Not a pretty picture.

True. But the same picture with some dope Old Navy board shorts and some central AC and you've got yourself a party.

[Fabrizio]

LOL! Exactly.... obese tourists in track suits are not the pretty picture. Maybe folks did have to sweat it out back then, but they were a lot more classy looking.

[alonzo-ny]

LOL! Funny posts.

I love seeing a series of images like that i love watching ny develop, makes you wish you could see the future, Anyone hazard a guess what will be there in 100 years?

[alonzo-ny]

Wait a minute why does it say red sox fan under your name instead of member?

[TLOZ Link5]

Yay, ablarc!

BTW, is that long, low building to the right of Central Park Place in the 1980s picture still around?

Some scenes in Taxi Driver were filmed around Columbus Circle. I remember seeing the fountain shooting pretty high jets of water around the Columbus monument, and lots of wrought-iron fences around the perimeter. The Jimmy Carter-esque Presidential nominee delivered a primary speech very close to the Maine monument.

[sadfg]

They tore this right building down for the TIHT !? Damn thats quite a building to demolish!!

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/80a.jpg

[sfenn1117]

They tore this right building down for the TIHT !? Damn thats quite a building to demolish!!

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/80a.jpg

It's the same building. Trump just bought it and renovated it. It's actually not a bad box.

[ablarc]

Same building, new clothes. In the process, they re-spaced the floors (seven more in all: 52 vs. 45 stories), which stiffened the building. Consequently it no longer sways.

.

[kz1000ps]

How did they squeeze more floors out of the same envelop? This seems like a major engineering endeavor. Then again, the building wasn't rigid enough in the first place so I suppose some action was necessary. Does anybody have pictures of its renovation?

[ablarc]

How did they squeeze more floors out of the same envelop? This seems like a major engineering endeavor. Then again, the building wasn't rigid enough in the first place so I suppose some action was necessary. Does anybody have pictures of its renovation?

"Problems with the 45-storey building's structural frame gave it unwanted fame as its base was scaffolded for years and the upper floors were prone to sway excessively on windy days, actually leading to cases of seasickness.

The 1997 renovation into a hotel and residential building, the Trump International Hotel & Tower (One Central Park West), by Costas Kondylis and Philip Johnson involved extensive renovation of both interior and facades. For example, the 45 storeys of the original office tower were converted into a 52-storeyed residential building, enabled by the lower ceiling height of residential spaces. The facade was converted with the addition of dark glass walls with distinctive shiny steel framing."

--http://www.nyc-architecture.com/UWS/UWS001.htm

http://www.thecityreview.com/uws/cpw/cpw1.html

[lofter1]

They tore this right building down for the TIHT !? Damn thats quite a building to demolish!!

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/80a.jpg

They didn't tear the one on the right down...

It was restructured by adding more diagonal supports (to give the building additonal strength -- and to stop it from swaying in the wind!!!) and then it was re-clad in the glorious Trump Bronze tones.

[macreator]

The circle was awful in the 80's when they cut through it and allowed cars to park in it.

The only thing worse was that awful New York Coliseum building. The TimeWarner Center is by far a much better complex.

[BigMac]

New York Times
August 4, 2005

An Island of Sanctuary in the Traffic Stream

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/08/04/nyregion/04blocks_lg.jpg
Columbus Circle, at the confluence of thoroughfares at a corner of Central Park, has a whole new look. Children evaded the heat by playing in the new fountains.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/08/04/nyregion/blocks.184.1650.jpg
Randal Yang and his daughter, Haley, enjoyed the cooling spray.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/08/04/nyregion/04blocks2_lg.jpg
A view of Columbus Circle in a less-trafficked time around 1925, from a postcard of the era.

At last, the circle has a center.

Columbus Circle was once one of the least approachable of New York's great public intersections. The architecture critic Paul Goldberger described it in 1979 as "a chaotic jumble of streets that can be crossed in about 50 different ways - all of them wrong."

Today, there are three different ways to cross Columbus Circle. And they are leading a growing number of pedestrians to a surprisingly generous sanctuary at the heart of a busy traffic rotary, cocooned inside a wrap-around fountain with 99 jets whose arcs suggest the circle itself and whose changing sound masks the surrounding hubbub.

"Even incomplete, you see the potential for a glorious public space," said Amanda M. Burden, the director of the City Planning Department, which has worked for nearly two decades to put the fragmented circle back together.

The new Columbus Circle has not yet officially opened. (Monday, Oct. 10, suggests itself as a possibility for that ceremony.) But New Yorkers have already arrived. Forgoing the air-conditioned Time Warner Center a few yards away and unfazed by the lack of benches - they are due any day from Milwaukee - people hang out on the tiered, octagonal base of the Columbus Monument as if it were a front stoop, with a view of Broadway, Central Park West, Central Park South and Eighth Avenue.

"We've actually opened it up ahead of having benches," said David J. Burney, the commissioner of the city's Department of Design and Construction. "Every time I was there, there were people at the barriers to the entrances saying: 'I want to get in. I want to get through.' There are quite strong desire lines for pedestrian traffic."

Around 9 o'clock on Tuesday night, three dozen people were gathered around the monument, eating, drinking, smoking, reading the paper, playing games on a cellphone, nestling affectionately, staring into space. Others sprawled languorously on the granite edges of the fountain, where a terrier chased water spouts and a little boy dipped his hand into the spray. An ill-kempt man bathed his feet furtively - but, it seemed, gratefully.

"The good thing is being able to get to the center," said Ethel Sheffer of Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side, who was the chairwoman of a Columbus Circle task force that also included Boards 4 and 5. "We all wanted New Yorkers to be able to go there."

In the decades after the Columbus Monument was dedicated in 1892, the Grand Circle (as it was once called) was exactly that, a broad rotary for vehicles and streetcars with a circular public space at its center not much larger than the monument's base.

Things were never the same after 1929, when Police Commissioner Grover Whalen ordered an end to the circular traffic flow. By the 1960's, despite the installation of a fountain around the monument, the central area had become an unwelcoming and amorphous archipelago where motorcycles parked but pedestrians crossed at some peril.

COLUMBUS CIRCLE is like a black hole," Ms. Sheffer said in 1987. "Cars go in, cars go out, but you never know what's going on inside." That year, in a report to the planning department, the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill proposed a larger, more circular island.

As finally realized under a $20 million city contract, Columbus Circle was redesigned by the Olin Partnership, working with Vollmer Associates. The fountain is by Wet Design. Tully Construction Company is the contractor.

The new Columbus Circle gives New Yorkers the chance to understand a critical element of the future World Trade Center memorial: how the sound of water can muffle distracting urban noise.

Almost inaudible outside the four-foot-high landscaped mound surrounding the circle, the fountain dominates the experience within. "It gives you that sense of being in the heart of the city with a sense of insulation from traffic," said Joseph B. Rose, who worked on the project when he was Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's planning director.

Depending on the force and size of the fountain jets, which alternate, the sound can evoke a swollen river, a rushing brook, a driving rain or a gentle shower.

At the trade center memorial, cascading water walls will surround each of the voids that are to mark the absence of the twin towers. The Columbus Circle fountain begins to suggest how important sound will be. "I've always tried to impress upon people that it's a sensory experience," said the architect Michael Arad, who won the memorial design competition in 2004 with Peter Walker & Partners.

Anna Hayes Levin, the chairwoman of the Clinton-Hell's Kitchen land-use committee of Community Board 4, said she was discouraged by the extent of hard, unshaded space within Columbus Circle. But she praised the restoration of the circular traffic flow, the creation of clear pedestrian access and the limited disruption caused by construction.

And she said, "I'm glad they finally have the fountain on, because for the last couple of months, it has been a skateboard park."

Mr. Burney said that would soon end with the installation of small stainless-steel clips on the sloping surfaces around the fountain "that spoilsports like me put on skateboarding walls."

So what about all those children wading in the fountain? Are they allowed to do that? "No, they're not," Mr. Burney answered. "But it was so hot last week, one could hardly blame them. I felt like jumping in there myself."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[NYatKNIGHT]

The different phases the fountain goes through really keeps it interesting.

[Johnnyboy]

i like to see any type of images of the old New York. Its very interesting. i like to compare then and now and see how far new york got.

[macreator]

I took a walk over to the new fountain the other day and found it a pleasant surprise. It looks wonderful in itself and juxtaposed to the new Time Warner center is is impressive. I'm quite happy the construction is over. The circle now feels much more permanent.

[pianoman11686]

Pictures taken 8/1/05:

http://images.snapfish.com/3447645523232%7Ffp64%3Dot%3E234%3A%3D937%3D37%3B%3 DXROQDF%3E2323%3A3%3B%3C%3A%3C3%3A4ot1lsi

http://images.snapfish.com/3447645523232%7Ffp63%3Dot%3E234%3A%3D937%3D37%3B%3 DXROQDF%3E2323%3A3%3B%3C%3B3856ot1lsi

http://images.snapfish.com/3447645523232%7Ffp47%3Dot%3E234%3A%3D937%3D37%3B%3 DXROQDF%3E2323%3A3%3B%3C%3A%3C395ot1lsi

http://images.snapfish.com/3447648%3B23232%7Ffp63%3Dot%3E2323%3D%3B33%3D695%3 D3232%3B335%3A4427nu0mrj

http://images.snapfish.com/3447648%3B23232%7Ffp47%3Dot%3E234%3A%3D937%3D37%3B %3DXROQDF%3E2323%3A3%3B%3C%3A%3C377ot1lsi

[ablarc]

Lookin' good.

[BrooklynRider]

I visited the circle yesterday. The benches are installed, but protective covering is still in place. Much nicer than I anticipated. When the trees in the circle and in from of TWC fill in, it should be quite lovely.

[BigMac]

September 9, 2005:

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/5509/cclarge7ec.jpg

[macreator]

Great lighting, awesome shot!

[TonyO]

Voice
Neighborhoods

Close-Up on Columbus Circle

by Christine Lagorio
September 8th, 2005 6:25 PM

The night breeze from the Hudson River hit my face as I leaned over the railing of the 56th Street penthouse balcony, peering far down at the glistening waterway and, to the right, the rooftops of Central Park West. Inside the party, heat and beats radiated from the small crowd of women with intentionally big hair circulating among men emulating Will Smith. The cool air gave me a chance to reflect: "This is Hell's Kitchen?"
"No," a sleek-haired woman said. "This is Columbus Circle, honey."

For decades a tiny landmark of steel and stone buildings west of boiling-pot Hell's Kitchen, Columbus Circle has lately argued its case as a full-featured neighborhood. Credit for the categorical leap goes mostly to a host of top-shelf clubs, classy hotels, and pricey restaurants that have popped up in the past five years, all giving a consistent feel to the blocks at the southwest corner of Central Park. Thanks is also due to the Time Warner Center, a defining landmark with innumerable angles and windows (unlike the neighboring "lollipop" building) that serves as a destination amid midtown clutter.

Compared to the recent growth spurt, the history of Columbus Circle has been a story of unused potential. When the Ninth Avenue elevated train made the area—previously the site of John Somerindyck's farm—accessible in the 1880s, speculators and homebuilders could have swarmed. Instead, warehouses and tenements popped up, as did another train line, which ran directly through what is today the CBS broadcast center on West 57th and delivered supplies to a horse farm located at today's Trump International Tower and Hotel.

Just before the turn of the 20th century, an experiment in luxury housing, the Dakota, led the way to developing nearby Central Park West into a world-class address. But by the 1960s, the area's building boom had produced a gaudier community to the south that, with its buskers and playhouses, rivaled Times Square's vaudeville and orchestra scene. In recent decades, though, the Hell's Kitchen effect has shriveled, and the northern 50s and blocks west of Broadway have traded a bohemian, non-residential chaos for the cozy uniformity of ritzy neighbors to the north.

Walking along Columbus Circle west of Broadway today, you'll find the tony Hudson Hotel, several Starbucks, a Coach store, and a Mandarin Oriental. It's all very pristine. But moreover, it has the consistency of a neighborhood—with each spoke of street extending from Columbus Circle home to apartments as well as luxury hotels.

The area's newest development is the removal of concrete construction barriers that had masked the $20-million, redesigned pedestrian enclave surrounding the Christopher Columbus statue. The leveled granite loop of space bordered by fountains and barely-there yellow buckeye trees is neither a must-see destination nor particularly welcoming for tourists—much less workweek pedestrians. One of the redesign's harshest critics, Newsday, called it "a pathetic little disc of greenery and granite floating in a soup of car exhaust."

Still, viewing the circle from above, especially from the Time Warner Center at night, is a bit breathtaking—much like having your preconceptions shaken up at a predawn party you thought was in Hell's Kitchen.

Boundaries: If you can see Columbus Circle, at or near street level, you are probably in Columbus Circle. A swath south to 56th Street, west to Tenth Avenue, and north to 61st Street is frequently described as a footprint for the neighborhood.

Transport: Subway trains: 1; A; B; C; D; N; R; Q. Buses: 7; 10; 20; 31; 57

Main Drags: Broadway, Eighth Avenue, 58th Street and the spoked loop they form, known as Columbus Circle.

Prices to Buy: Co-op apartments between West 57th Street and Lincoln Center sold for (surprisingly) less than average for Manhattan in 2004: $883, 624. According to Douglas Elliman's market report, studios sold for an average of $290,000; one-bedrooms, $475,000; two-bedrooms, $1.3 million; three-bedrooms, $2,8 million; four-bedrooms, $9.6 million.

Prices to Rent: Studios, $1,300 to $2,100; one-bedroom, $1,400 to $2,800; two-bedroom, $2,200 to $4,500.

What to Check Out: Newspapers in places like Phoenix have featured the Time Warner Center, which rams up against Columbus Circle between 58th and 60th Streets, as an all-day vacation destination. Six Flags for the Burberry set? Don't scoff: For all its sleek design and attractive shops, the complex is worth a gander. The Whole Foods downstairs is one of the less expensive (and more reliable) places to grab lunch in the area. The "Inside CNN" tour on the center's third floor will please the cable news junkie. Likewise, asking a clerk to show you rooms at any of the areas high-rise hotels (Hudson at 356 W. 58th Street; Mandarin Oriental, check in on 35th floor of 80 Columbus Circle) provides a classy—and free—way to view the Central Park from above.

Hangouts, Parks: With several hospitals and schools within the few blocks west of Columbus Circle, a place to sit down and rest is never far. If gummy-worm shaped wood-slatted benches at the circle itself that force a lingerer to gaze at the conqueror-on-the-pedestal or face the outer traffic circle aren't appealing, cross the intersection to friendly Central Park. A green space at Ninth Ave and 57th Street is the site of weekday farmers markets in the summer and is even home to a small café kiosk.

Crime: Recorded violence, theft, and vandalism in the Midtown North precinct is still in decline in post-Giuliani years, but 2005 is poised to register an increase, with three murders this year compared to one last year and 259 burglaries compared to 2004's 222. The 20th precinct, which covers the West side north of 59th Street, sees considerably less crime regularly. In 2005, 151 robberies, 12 rapes, and 151 assaults have occurred.

Politicians: City Councilmember Gail Brewer, State Senator Thomas K. Duane, State Representatives Richard N. Gottfried and Scott Stringer, U.S. Representative. Jerrold Nadler. All are Democrats.

[lofter1]

Close-Up on Columbus Circle
by Christine Lagorio
September 8th, 2005 6:25 PM

... "This is Hell's Kitchen?"
"No," a sleek-haired woman said. "This is Columbus Circle, honey."

For decades a tiny landmark of steel and stone buildings west of boiling-pot Hell's Kitchen, Columbus Circle has lately argued its case as a full-featured neighborhood ...
Since when is Columbus Circle located to the WEST of Hell's Kitchen?

[elfgam]

I'm sorry but that pathetic little disc of a park is one of the most amazing urban spaces in the city and is a delight to go to, especially in the evenings... and a GREAT make out spot.

[BigMac]

I agree...a rather underrated oasis.

[Clarknt67]

I'm sorry but that pathetic little disc of a park is one of the most amazing urban spaces in the city and is a delight to go to, especially in the evenings... and a GREAT make out spot.

Yeah, Newsday's insane (maybe their suburban perspective can't grasp the beauty of an urban oasis). A friend and I stopped there the other night and hung there for an hour or so talking and it was very pleasant. The fountain is a little noisy, as is the inevitable traffic. But the view, of the park, of the circle, of the TW Center, of Amsterdam Ave. of Brdwy, was just gorgeous. It really did feel like an oasis.

[TLOZ Link5]

What's it going to be like in winter, I wonder?

[fioco]

In the winter, TLOZ? Probably cold and snowy. :D Come Decemeber, grab a hot cocoa and enjoy the people watching. I agree, this little parcel is an amazing place and quite a pleasant surprise.

[NYatKNIGHT]

September 16, 2005


Taking a Chisel to 2 Columbus Circle, With No Regrets

By ROBIN FINN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=ROBIN FINN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=ROBIN FINN&inline=nyt-per)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/15/nyregion/16lives184.jpg

HOLLY HOTCHNER bops into her subterranean office at the Museum of Arts and Design on West 53rd Street with one crimson-manicured hand at full extension and her startling nimbus of auburn hair rippling like a flag in a stiff wind. Her copious freckles, invigorated by a week of hard hiking in the Utah sunshine, resemble dappled body armor. Even her jewelry - a wire cuff, a hefty diamond engagement band and an oversized beaded floral necklace that rates jaw-dropping reactions on the street - packs a tacit punch.

Without being asked, she rips into an infomercial for "Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 2," the museum's "boundary-breaking" display of modern artifacts by Native American artists; it opens on Sept. 22 and is, she vows, one-of-a-kind. Political. A must-see.
She looks and sounds, in short, like a woman capable of mowing down any obstacle in her path, including the derelict nine-story white elephant at 2 Columbus Circle that the museum agreed to buy from the city for $17 million in 2002 and intends to use as its flagship, after a sophisticated $30 million face-lift that has provoked four lawsuits from preservationists. She is psyched at the prospect of reinventing the museum she runs: "It's sort of a real dream to be able to build a museum in New York City." A legacy for a would-be sculptor who never saw herself in "a desk job."

She promises that the sculptural elements of 2 Columbus Circle, which she describes as "a designated mausoleum" in its current incarnation, will be retained, but stands by the Landmarks Preservation Commission's decision not to award the building landmark status: "It's not like we're going in there at midnight with a wrecking ball. This building has more than had its day in court."

Buoyed by a Sept. 1 court ruling in favor of the museum, Ms. Hotchner, its director since 1996, when it was fumbling along in obscurity and insolvency as the American Craft Museum, hopes to start ripping into concrete next month. Appeals? Not a deterrent. The two-year litigation delay has already cost the museum $5 million in overruns, equal to its yearly operating budget.

Clarification: She doesn't actually want to gut "the lollipop" building, the oddball marble-clad structure Edward Durell Stone designed in the kitschy 60's to house the modern art collection of Huntington Hartford. Rather, she wants to liberate it from hibernation and, courtesy of an external infusion of light-hued terra cotta and glassy fenestration, throw it a lifeline.

"I've never heard of anyone who likes the building aesthetically," she says, seated at a black glass desk trimmed in masculine black leather (don't ask; it's a freebie hand-me-down). Sure, the desk is ugly, she adds, but at least it functions. Unlike 2 Columbus Circle, which is arguably ugly, but doesn't. "The word 'ugly' comes up again and again," she complains. "I think nearly everyone would agree 2 Columbus Circle is a tremendous eyesore; some of us call it the world's greatest urinal at this point."

Ms. Hotchner, who turned 54 on Sept. 11, is not intimidated by Landmark West, the Upper West Side preservation group, or the World Monuments Fund, which placed 2 Columbus Circle on its list of 100 endangered landmarks this summer. Quite the opposite. Back when she, in her own conservationist heyday (she's still on the board of the New York Landmarks Conservancy), was hired by the New-York Historical Society to preserve its museum collection, she was told that she ought to rethink her "very intimidating" hairdo. Opt for a librarian-ish bun. She balked. By 1988, she was museum director.

So maybe it's O.K., even in rarefied museum circles, to be a little intimidating?

"It's worked for me," says Ms. Hotchner, whose father, A. E. Hotchner, was Hemingway's biographer. She recalls Papa Hemingway as a bear of a guy, and not a teddy bear. "To a little girl of 4, he was frightening."

MS. HOTCHNER grew up in Manhattan, lived mostly at the Beresford, and attended the Dalton School. Her parents separated when she was young, and at 15, she lost her mother, a journalist for Look magazine and a publicist for David O. Selznick, to cancer. She attended Trinity College, and after graduating snagged a coveted spot at the Museum of Modern Art as a cataloger, for $6,500 a year. Her sculpture career went nowhere - "I didn't want to be a Sunday artist" - but she became focused on art conservation and pursued a master's in fine arts and a certificate of conservation at New York University.

Jobs at the Met and the Tate segued into what remains a favorite project, the restoration of a John La Farge mural at the Church of the Ascension. Ms. Hotchner, who lives on the Upper East Side with her husband, Franklin Silverstone, a curator and software entrepreneur, left the historical society in a state of burnout and started an art consulting business when a headhunter recruited her for her present job.

"On my first day, I walked in and the first thing I saw was a mouse, the second thing was an eviction notice on my desk, and the third was that the bookkeeper came in and said, 'We can't make the payroll this week,' " she recalls. "It really was like a Monty Python kind of thing." Ms. Hotchner suggested that perhaps the wisest business course for the craft museum would be to go out of business. Or change drastically. The board chose the second option. She dug in. Still is.

Copyright 2005 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[BrooklynRider]

Wow! Bi-otch!

[lofter1]

I just came across these images of prior proposals for Columbus Circle / TWC site ( http://www.thecityreview.com/dumpty.htm ) :


Murphy/Jahn for Tishman Speyer Properties:

http://www.thecityreview.com/jahn.gif


Robert A. M. Stern and Costas Kondylis for
the Trump Organization and Colony Capital
(the top looks very similar to what Stern has
come up with for the Mayflower site):

http://www.thecityreview.com/angle.gif


Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Elkus/Manfredi for
the Related Companies and Himmel & Company:

http://www.thecityreview.com/childs.gif

[krulltime]

Nice work lofter1!

Hmmm... I still like the Time Warner that we have.

But from those 3... I think the last one I like the best.

[hella good]

i love the first one!
although i wouldnt trade the ones we have.

[lofter1]

Here's some info on the OLD Columbus Circle:

International Theatre

Also known as the Majestic, Park, Minsky's Park Music Hall, Cosmopolitan, Theatre of Youth

New York, NY
5 Columbus Circle
New York, NY, United States

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/2936/

http://cinematreasures.org/images/photos/2936.jpg
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

Vintage photograph of the
Majestic Theatre on Columbus Circle


Status:Closed/Demolished (http://cinematreasures.org/status/9/)
Screens:Single Screen (http://cinematreasures.org/screens/1/)
Style:Neo-Classical (http://cinematreasures.org/style/18/)
Function:Unknown (http://cinematreasures.org/function/)
Seats:1584 (http://cinematreasures.org/seats/2/)
Chain:Unknown (http://cinematreasures.org/chain/)
Architect:John H. Duncan (http://cinematreasures.org/architect/207/), Joseph Urban (http://cinematreasures.org/architect/170/)
Firm:Unknown (http://cinematreasures.org/firm/)



Around the turn of the century, many believed that the new center of New York's entertainment district would be moving to Columbus Circle, and E.D. Stair and A.L. Wilbur backed up the speculation by erecting a grandiose new theater at the western end of the oval-shaped plaza, Grand Circle, in 1903.

Designed by John H. Duncan, the 1584-seat Majestic Theatre had entrances on both 58th and 59th Streets, as well as its main entrance on Columbus Circle. Featuring a large proscenium arch, two balconies, a double staircase in the lobby and two sets of box seats, the Majestic truly lived up to its name, and was designed to be every bit as impressive and ornate as the finest European opera house.

The lobby and hallway walls were covered in marble wainscoting, while gilded columns lined the upper level of the lobby and also pairs of massive white columns framed the side boxes in the auditorium, capped by statues of trumpeting cherubs and colossal golden eagles.

The stage, at 80 feet wide and 38 feet deep could accommodate the most elaborate of shows, and did just that when it opened in the fall of 1903 with the first musical stage version of "The Wizard of Oz", which was a tremendous hit. Its then-jaw dropping special effects, such as an on-stage tornado were particularly crowd-pleasing. It would run for over ten months.

In 1911, the Majestic was renamed the Park, which continued to feature legitimate theater, but also Sunday afternoon movie screenings. As the Park Theatre, this is where "Pygmallian" had its debut.

However, in 1922, burlesque came to the Park, and it was again renamed, as Minksy's Park Music Hall. A year later, William Randolph Hearst acquired the theater, and made it the main venue for his own Cosmopolitan Pictures film company. It was given yet another new name, the Cosmopolitan.

Florenz Ziegfeld took over the Cosmopolitan in 1925, and his house architect, Joseph Urban, updated the interior. For nine months, it returned to legitimate theater, but in 1926, Ziegfeld gave it up to focus on the construction of his self-named theater. Under new management, however, the Cosmopolitan continued to stage legitimate fare until the Depression forced its closing in 1929.

It reopened in 1931, now presenting a mixed bill of vaudeville acts and motion pictures. From 1934-35, it was once more legit, as the Theatre of Young America, but late in 1935, movies and the old name, the Park, returned again.

In 1944, now renamed the International, the theater hosted the Ballet International for several weeks, then a brief run of legitimate theater, the next year. In December 1945, it was a movie house once more, as the Columbus Square, but was the International by the following August, hosting the occasional live performance but mainly sitting vacant until acquired by the NBC network in early 1949, as a television studio premiering the Admiral Broadway Review on January 28, 1949. The stars were Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. The television program was "Your Show of Shows."

NBC left the International in 1954, and not long afterwards, the former theater, along with most of its neighbors on Columbus Circle, was razed to make way for the New York Convention Center.

Contributed by Bryan Krefft

[TLOZ Link5]

Are there ANY great movie palaces left in New York?

::grumbles unintelligibly about Robert Moses for the next ten minutes::

[BrooklynRider]

Well, we have the Ziegfield.

[BigMac]

NYC.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 357-05
September 19, 2005

MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES THE REOPENING OF COLUMBUS CIRCLE

http://www.gothamist.com/attachments/Jen%20Chung/2005_09_ccircle.jpg
(Gothamist)

Video (http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2005b/media/pc091905-columbuscircle.asx) (56k)
Video (http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2005b/media/pc091905-columbuscircle300k.asx) (300k)

Mayor Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today joined Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Commissioner David J. Burney, Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Iris Weinshall and Department of City Planning Director Amanda M. Burden to announce the completion of Columbus Circle in midtown Manhattan. The $23 million project included a new streetscape design, granite curbs and sidewalks, distinctive wooden benches, a breathtaking central fountain, and new landscaping as well as the restoration of underground and above ground utilities, water mains, and the roadway.

“Columbus Circle has always been one of New York City’s most beloved historic spaces, and it is now even more pedestrian-friendly,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “With lush plantings and a beautiful water fountain that screens the area from the passing traffic, one can sit at the heart of one of the busiest intersections in our City and still find the tranquility to relax and read a good book. The multi-agency effort not only transformed the circle into a beautiful public space for New Yorkers and visitors, it also greatly improved traffic conditions making the area safer for pedestrians.”

“For much of its history Columbus Circle was neither a circle nor a good public space,” said Commissioner Benepe. “A multi-agency effort has created one of New York’s great new public plazas, with a glorious new fountain, lush plantings, and a place of respite for residents, workers, and visitors.”

“Columbus Circle is one of New York’s great public spaces and DDC is proud to have managed this major reconstruction project,” said Commissioner Burney. “The new central pedestrian and seating area, screened from traffic by trees and fountains, will provide a tranquil plaza that all can enjoy.”

The design was based on an interim space created in 1999 that combined segmented traffic islands, which at that time, made up Columbus Circle. Construction began in July 2003 and was a multi-agency effort. DDC oversaw the final design by Vollmer Consultants and construction by general contractor Tully Construction Company. The Department of City Planning worked closely with Olin Partnership to create the project’s overall plan and landscape/urban design features. The $23 million reconstruction was funded by $21.3 million from the City, with $1.2 million from the Transit Authority and $500,000 for the fountain equipment from Related Companies, L.P. and Apollo Real Estate. Prior to construction, the design was partially supported by $500,000 from the Related Companies and Apollo Real Estate.

The circle is laid out in a series of concentric rings consisting of a broad, gently raised area of plantings and a ring of fountains in its interior that buffer the traffic noise and provide a serene, pedestrian plaza around the Christopher Columbus Statue. The pedestrian plaza is set inside of the fountain, and includes three new benches made of curved wood, large enough to allow individuals and groups to sit comfortably back to back, facing either the fountain or the monument. The new fountain includes 99 fountain heads and nearly 300 fountain lights, and was designed by WETdesign, who also designed the fountains at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Rockefeller Center Prometheus Fountain.

The Department of Parks & Recreation was responsible for the center public space and provided the scope and funding for the fountain, benches, landscaping and upcoming renovation of Columbus Statue. DOT provided scope and funding for the improved traffic and pedestrian flow and surrounding roadwork. The DEP provided funding for water main and sewer improvements for the surrounding area. The Central Park Conservancy provided assistance to DDC throughout the project.

“Columbus Circle is now a destination rather than just an intersection,” said Commissioner Weinshall. “The redesign allows for a more orderly movement of traffic and most importantly creates a safer route for pedestrians to cross.”

“DEP’s role was mostly on belowground infrastructure, but we’re pleased to be part of this marvelous civic effort that revamped Columbus Circle,” said Commissioner Lloyd. “Over $2 million of new water mains likely won’t be noticed by the millions of people who pass through each year, but they will play an important role for many decades to come – particularly, getting water to the new central fountain.”

“The renewed Columbus Circle has become a magical and compelling open space marking the location of one of the most important crossroads of the City,” said City Planning Director Amanda M. Burden. “The graceful fountains, generous seating, plantings and lighting have transformed a neglected traffic island into a vibrant destination for all New Yorkers. We were pleased and proud to work with Laurie Olin on the design of this splendid new public space.”

Copyright 2005 The City of New York

[krulltime]

http://www.gothamist.com/attachments/Jen%20Chung/2005_09_ccircle.jpg

Wow this night light thing is great!

I just hope that Time Warner Towers will light them self up aswell.

[NewYorkYankee]

When are the towers going to be lit again?

[BigMac]

September 9, 2005:

http://i.pbase.com/v3/05/432305/1/49310850.SunlightonColumbusCircle.JPG

[ablarc]

Beautiful picture, BigMac. I love how you captured the way Time Warner and 2 Columbus Circle cooperate to form the Circle. At one time 2 Columbus Circle was the only building hereabouts that even knew it was on a circle. Now it will be reclothed in boring duds that will more closely resemble Time Warner. Much will be lost.

[vc10]

At this point I don't much care what they do with 2 Columbus Circle. It's such an eyesore. Blow it up for all I care.

Beautiful picture, BigMac. I love how you captured the way Time Warner and 2 Columbus Circle cooperate to form the Circle. At one time 2 Columbus Circle was the only building hereabouts that even knew it was on a circle. Now it will be reclothed in boring duds that will more closely resemble Time Warner. Much will be lost.

[ablarc]

At this point I don't much care what they do with 2 Columbus Circle. It's such an eyesore. Blow it up for all I care.
That, I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear, is what most folks said about Penn Station.

[TLOZ Link5]

That, I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear, is what most folks said about Penn Station.

Regardless of your opinion on the matter of 2 Columbus Circle, to compare its architectural importance to that of Penn Station is likely pushing it a bit.

[ablarc]

Regardless of your opinion on the matter of 2 Columbus Circle, to compare its architectural importance to that of Penn Station is likely pushing it a bit.
That's right, it is; and it's also not the point I'm trying to make.

The point I'm trying to make is that folks' indifference to the loss of a building can be a fleeting thing, and should give us pause when a significant minority of people feel a building should be saved.

Otherwise, there are regrets later.

The Savoy-Plaza was also not as architecturally significant as Penn Station, yet its passing is still often regretted forty years on.

[Fabrizio]

I´d hate to see 2 Columbus changed into the banal remake that has been proposed ....but I´m much more upset about the loss of a side-street brownstone or a building like the Studebaker. 2 Columbus is there on it´s own little island affecting none of us. It´s not knit into the street fabric. My gosh, they tear down the Helen Hayes and the Morrosco... buildings that create street ambience... the NY experience...replace them with a Chinese wall and everyone´s quiet. 2 Columbus is an easy cause that dirtys no one. The whole argument is a bore.

[ablarc]

^ I see your point about the loss of less unsung brownstones and other relatively anonymous contributors to the ambiance, but don't diss 2 Columbus Circle because it's prominent.

And prominent it is; despite its lilliputian size, you can spot it from about a mile up Central Park West and from some distance up Broadway. And as to whether it's knit into the street fabric, consider:

I could easily write a paragraph or two about how it actually taught a generation of [post]-modern architects how to knit urban buildings into the fabric at a time when nobody --absolutely nobody-- was doing it. Look at its contemporaries --the tombstones on Sixth Avenue-- for examples of buildings not knit. 2 Columbus Circle holds whatever street line it's dealt on all four sides; it's free-standing because it fills its entire lot, but it's a thoroughly urban building --the first one in decades when it was built; that was a time when architectural theory taught that it was imperative to avoid knitting, as Lever House, Seagram, CBS and Stone's own GM Building demonstrate. You could easily say that Stone taught David Childs what to do at Time Warner by providing good example. Remember how the Coliseum thought it was in outer space? That's not being knit.

[macreator]

I would be more interested in saving 2 Columbus Circle if it was still serving a use.

The building has been abandoned for years now and the museum won't take it unless they can renovate it. And if the museum won't take it in its current form, who will?

Frankly, if a building has outlived its usefulness, then why shouldn't it be demolished and turned into something new.

Buildings are meant to be productive and once they no longer are, then our capitalist society deserves to see that building turned into something that once again contributes to the City.

Am I the only one who is fed up with urban blight on one of our revived City jewels, Columbus Circle?

The idea of a museum having a presence and completing the Circle's new renaissance is a very good one in my opinion.

[BigMac]

From Eye Dream Awake (http://www.eyedreamawake.com):

http://www.eyedreamawake.com/images/DSCN3198_1024x768.jpg

[BrooklynRider]

Wow! That's like the money shot in a gay porn movie!

[ZippyTheChimp]

Columbus Circle at night.

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4673/colcirclenight017bf.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight017bf.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/3794/colcirclenight028um.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight028um.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/8791/colcirclenight034ec.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight034ec.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/1389/colcirclenight043nf.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight043nf.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/2271/colcirclenight058jp.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight058jp.jpg)

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4351/colcirclenight061bj.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight061bj.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/889/colcirclenight076vv.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight076vv.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/379/colcirclenight089hx.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight089hx.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/6182/colcirclenight099nz.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight099nz.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/6413/colcirclenight101sw.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight101sw.jpg)

[ZippyTheChimp]

A few more

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4448/colcirclenight112ib.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight112ib.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/2401/colcirclenight125ru.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight125ru.jpg) http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4749/colcirclenight134fc.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colcirclenight134fc.jpg)

[Comelade]

thank you for the photographs. really superb, highly May so that I see Ca in truth.

[michelle1]

Top snaps Zippy

[yyy]

Amazing photos - thanks Zippy :) New York looks great at night :cool:

[vc10]

But the indifference to this building doesn't seem fleeting. It seems constant.

And Penn Station was a great public space with a function. This is just a rich man's folly, for which no one was able to find a use once the rich man was done funding the folly.

That's right, it is; and it's also not the point I'm trying to make.

The point I'm trying to make is that folks' indifference to the loss of a building can be a fleeting thing, and should give us pause when a significant minority of people feel a building should be saved.

Otherwise, there are regrets later.

The Savoy-Plaza was also not as architecturally significant as Penn Station, yet its passing is still often regretted forty years on.

[ablarc]

The Dahesh Museum was interested in this building, and actually tried to acquire it, but it was passed over for the present museum. The Dahesh would have made a great fit, and they wouldn't have changed the building's appearance.

[NYC123]

Zippy, what type of camera did you take those pictures with? They look great.

[michelle1]

The Dahesh Museum was interested in this building, and actually tried to acquire it, but it was passed over for the present museum. The Dahesh would have made a great fit, and they wouldn't have changed the building's appearance.It's a shame the Dahesh Museum lost a bid to redevelop property at 2 CC.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Zippy, what type of camera did you take those pictures with? They look great.
Nikon D70

[ZippyTheChimp]

I still walk around with the Olympus. It just doesn't take good night photos.

[BigMac]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/ColumbusCirclefromTimeWarnerCenterNYC20050807.jpg/800px-ColumbusCirclefromTimeWarnerCenterNYC20050807.jpg
(Wikipedia)

[lofter1]

nice...

When you remember back to what a mess Columbus Circle was few years ago it almost seems miraculous that we ended up with something as terrific as this ...

[vc10]

The circle itself is a little bit of metropolitan Europe lifted into Manhattan. I like it, though one is probably enough.

nice...

When you remember back to what a mess Columbus Circle was few years ago it almost seems miraculous that we ended up with something as terrific as this ...

[MidtownGuy]

Today was the perfect Spring today in NYC, so a friend and I took a walk to the West side for lunch.
Well, this was the first time that I had entered the completed new central area of Columbus Circle. WOW! It looks good from the side, but when you actually enter it, there is such wonderful proportion to everything. The relationship between benches, fountains, monument and open area just felt so right.
Most impressive of all, this was a space truly being used by so many people; when one is sitting inside, there's a stunning vista in every direction. I couldn't help but think of how Kunstler(whose book I am currently reading thanks to Fabrizio's suggestion) would approve- part of an asphalt no-place has been reclaimed from the automobile so that real life could happen there.

http://static.flickr.com/52/141601305_df1c415425_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/56/141596893_d29371e138_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/25/141596896_ac9588861d_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/49/141596897_25bac36470_b.jpg

[czsz]

Kunstler has become a fanatic who thinks New York is going to hell because its skyscraper lifestyle is dependent on the energy guaranteed by the oil economy. I also don't think he would approve of the circle's high-tech gimmickry; it's all-and-all too little neotraditional for him.

[MidtownGuy]

I've read 2 chapters in the book, and haven't read those sentiments yet, but I agree with what he says about how to mess up a town. I disagree with your assessment of how he'd view this little space for people to congregate- "gimmickry", as you call it, aside, there is no doubt that a someplace has been created out of a no-place.
Oil is a different discussion altogether.

[czsz]

He wrote that book years ago. His views have evolved considerably since then. He's become entirely obsessed with the "end of cheap oil".

[MidtownGuy]

Well, I can think of less worthy things to obsess over.
Anyway, What's your opinion of the circle?

[ablarc]

An outdoor room.


2 Columbus Circle was the first to recognize its potential to be that. Time Warner magnifies it. Thank God, they're not changing 2 Columbus Circle's massing. I'll miss its facade treatment, though; it and TWC were briefly like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash collaborating on a song: two different styles, same tune.

.

[lofter1]

Just so we all don't forget how far CC has come in the past few years (not that it's perfect, but it's sure darned nice ) ...

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/colcir/80a.jpg
How CC looked up to the '90s ^

[ablarc]

The circle itself is a little bit of metropolitan Europe lifted into Manhattan. I like it, though one is probably enough.
There's a second one at the Park's southeast corner.

And yet another at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue.

And how about Verdi Square?

[BPC]

Kunstler has become a fanatic who thinks New York is going to hell because its skyscraper lifestyle is dependent on the energy guaranteed by the oil economy. I also don't think he would approve of the circle's high-tech gimmickry; it's all-and-all too little neotraditional for him.

BTW, I haven't read the book, but high-rise urban city living is by far the most energy-efficient, environmentally sensitive lifestyle imaginable. The worst, by cnotrast, is rural living, what with all the space required of it and all the engery required to move persons and goods around. Just imagine how much wilderness would have to be torn up, and how much oil would have to be wasted, if NYC's eight million residents all lived out on farms in the country.

[antinimby]

There's a second one at the Park's southeast corner.
And yet another at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue.And how about Verdi Square?I don't remember any traffic circles at these locations.

I prefer that they be more like the ones in Europe, where they don't have traffic lights.

[Fabrizio]

I haven´t been to the new Columbus Circle yet but will see it in August. I can only judge it from photos but...just don´t like the architecture of it.....what style are those benches? Looks to cutsy to me....and will date badly.

Cz: "Kunstler has become a fanatic who thinks New York is going to hell because its skyscraper lifestyle is dependent on the energy guaranteed by the oil economy. I also don't think he would approve of the circle's high-tech gimmickry; it's all-and-all too little neotraditional for him."

^LOL. This is just such BS. Kunstler´s style is hyperbole but you are mis-interpreting what the guy is saying and taking it out of context. He feels that AMERICAS lifestyle is going to hell because it is "dependent on the energy guaranteed by the oil economy".

He´s hardly alone.

-----------------------

http://peakoil.blogspot.com/2006/04/long-emergency-james-howard-kunstler.html

[ablarc]

I don't remember any traffic circles at these locations.
I was referring to "Metropolitan Europe", not traffic circles. Grand Army Plaza, Bryant Park and Verdi Square all remind folks of Europe. None are traffic circles; Columbus Circle is a traffic circle, as you say, but that's not what makes it European imo.

[lofter1]

...what style are those benches? Looks to cutsy to me....and will date badly.

the benches are really kind of cool -- designed with rounded and sloped edges methinks to deter skateboarders. really quite comfy.

The entire space of the circle is much more encompassing in person than it might seem in photos.

Curious to hear what you think.

[hella good]

the new circle looks great! really relaxing and the fountains are great!

the old road setup in that photo looked absolutley hurrendous!

[Fabrizio]

I would like to have seen the architectural style of the new developement in the Circle to work better with the Merchant´s Gate at the entrance to Central Park and with the statue of Columbus...tying the whole thing together. The benches look suburban style to me...unsophisticated...even the color seems wrong. They seem to come out of nowhere.

I really like what I see, for instance, at the Trump (ex GM) building on 5th. The new plaza is very formal but modern, and works beautifully with the classic buildings to the right and left, as well as the modern Trump building behind it ...and Grand Army Plaza in front of it. It looks like it was based on principles of good design....rather than playing so directly to the audience.

Of course I´m basing these observations on photos....I´m looking forward to visiting soon.

---------------

[MidtownGuy]

I'll get some closer pics of the benches next time I pass through- perhaps something isn't translating in the photos because I agree with lofter that they're kind of cool. The rounded form definitely felt very welcoming and comfortable to sit on. The wood is really nice too, though I hope it isn't something that was ripped out of a rainforest.

[Fabrizio]

I have no doubt that they´re welcoming and comfortable....and coool.

The marble seating slabs at the Apple Store or the park in front of the Lincoln Center Library don´t look at all welcoming and comfortable.... they look chic and timeless.... I guess that´s what I´m getting at.

[ablarc]

^ Both approaches are good, but for different reasons.

[czsz]

No, Fab, you haven't been paying attention. Here's Kunstler on a new skyscraper in Louisville:

[it] violates everything that we can reasonably expect about the energy-scarce future -- most particularly the poor prospects for running skyscrapers and megastructures.

and on the towers of Park Avenue:

These buildings, and the voids of empty space they entailed, were suited to exactly the culture of myrmidons we became in the late 20th century, which is to say of enterprises such as the New York Times.

I could find more, but his website is painfully designed and finding anything more on it is a chore. I hope you get the point though.

[lofter1]

once again wirednewyork sends me searching ...

myrmidon \ MUR-muh-don; -duhn \, noun:
1. (Capitalized) A member of a warlike Thessalian people who followed Achilles on the expedition against Troy.

2. A loyal follower, especially one who executes orders without question, protest, or pity.

[MidtownGuy]

today, on the way home from our wonderful planting in JB's honor, I stopped in TWC and took this pic. I love this circle so much now, I just can't stop taking pictures of it.

http://static.flickr.com/47/145713413_607ff120d0_b.jpg

[Zerlina]

MidtownGuy, please...
DON'T STOP taking pictures of it! The last time I saw the Columbus Circle there were "works in progress"... and now... it's wonderful!!! Oh... why can't I be there, now???:(

[MidtownGuy]

hi Zerlina, I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures. I am going to make a thread with some more Spring time pictures I took recently.

[ArchiveNYC]

http://f5.putfile.com/5/13219164880.jpg

http://f5.putfile.com/5/13219185055.jpg

[lofter1]

Through a Glass Brightly

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/14/nyregion/14cant.xlarge1.jpg
Columbia Pictures/Brian Gari Archives
In a 1954 Judy Holliday film, "It Should Happen to You!," with Peter Lawford,
cameo appearances for long-gone Columbus Circle landmarks.

By JOHN FREEMAN GILL (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/john_freeman_gill/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/nyregion/14cant.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
Sunday May 14, 2006

EDDIE CANTOR, one of the most popular singer-comedians of the first half of the 20th century, began his career as a Lower East Side orphan. By 1933, he was earning enough money as a movie and radio star to move his young family to a penthouse triplex in one of the Upper West Side's signature buildings: the twin-towered San Remo Apartments on Central Park West and 74th Street.

Not long after the move, his adventurous 7-year-old daughter, Janet, clambered up the outside of the colonnaded south tower, where she hung with one hand from a metal rung 27 stories above Central Park West until her terrified nanny coaxed her down.

About 17 years later, Janet was married and living in an apartment just around the corner, where she conceived a son named Brian Gari.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/14/nyregion/14cant.1904.jpg
Brian Gari, Eddie Cantor's grandson,
retrieving memories after the
Loew's 83rd Street theater was
demolished in the mid-1980's.

Mr. Gari, now a lanky 54-year-old with a salt-and-pepper beard, today has an overview of the ever-evolving Upper West Side that is, in its way, nearly as commanding as was his mother's perspective from atop that tower. A singer-songwriter by profession, Mr. Gari has made a passionate lifelong hobby of documenting the changing streetscape of the Upper West Side, where he has lived all but a few months of his life. His primary method has been to collect every moving image of the neighborhood he could get his hands on, all the way back to a 1910 Edison Company film of Columbus Circle, along with scores of still photographs and salvaged scraps of demolished theaters.



http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/05/14/nyregion/14cant.large3.jpghttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifKino International/Brian Gari Archives
An images from a 1910 Edison Company film of Columbus Circle, one of Mr. Gari's rare finds.

Mr. Gari's fascination with the neighborhood's relentless evolution early. In 1964, at age 12, he was so struck by the wholesale demolitions taking place in the name of urban renewal that he traveled up and down Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues with an eight-millimeter camera, shooting a shaky but evocative 10-minute film he called "City Slickin'."

Twenty years later, as beloved theaters like the Loew's 83rd Street Quad were facing the wrecking ball, he grabbed a Betamovie camcorder and made another jostling photographic journey, this time down Broadway from West 91st Street past Columbus Circle. And ever since, each time he caught a film or video glimpse of the neighborhood, whether in a documentary of Rudolph Valentino's funeral at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home on Broadway in 1926 or a 1949 television episode of "Candid Camera" shot on West 103rd Street, he has saved them and ultimately digitized them for posterity.


The Secrets of 'Naked City'

"I hardly pay attention to the stories," Mr. Gari said one recent afternoon as he fast-forwarded through a 1963 television episode of the police drama "Naked City" that was playing on a hulking 50-inch television screen in his bedroom. "I'm looking for the Upper West Side."

He was sitting barefoot on a queen-size bed, surrounded by DVD's, film encyclopedias and photographs of his grandfather, in a rent-controlled apartment on West End Avenue near 92nd Street that has been his home since he moved there as a 12-year-old in 1964.

"This is Riverside Drive and th