330 Madison Avenue - by Kahn & Jacobs

**Amanita** · May 9th, 2012, 01:46 AM

I have to admit, that looks good!
As for recladding One Astor, I hope they don't! I like that one, it just needs a good scrubbing.

**DUMBRo** · May 10th, 2012, 06:38 PM

I kinda wish the corporate canyons on Park Ave. could be preserved in their original Mad Men state. Even the uglier buildings retain a kind of familiar mid-century gemutlichkeit that these glassy Darth Vader retrofits lack. I do agree with new curtainwall upgrades like at the UN, which hew to the original spirit of the tower's design while improving energy efficiency, etc.

**londonlawyer** · May 10th, 2012, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by Amanita

I have to admit, that looks good!
As for recladding One Astor, I hope they don't! I like that one, it just needs a good scrubbing.

Who said that OneAstor will be reclad?

**Amanita** · May 11th, 2012, 12:21 PM

I saw a rendering from a few years ago, showing a proposed reclad. It was freaking terrible. They would have ripped off that lovely crown, and those long vertical fins, and replaced it all with a flat-topped, generic glass facade that could be anywhere. I'm glad that it appears to be a dead idea, and hope it stays buried. Whoever thought it was a good idea to screw with one of the most unique skyscraper rooflines in midtown deserves to be scalped!

Here's the pic I found:

**londonlawyer** · May 11th, 2012, 04:05 PM

yIKES.

**Amanita** · May 13th, 2012, 01:18 PM

I know, horrible isn't it? It just looks so generic and bland, rendering a pretty cool looking skyscraper completely unrecognizable, and utterly forgettable. It sucks, right?

**londonlawyer** · May 13th, 2012, 02:05 PM

It sucks for sure.

**DUMBRo** · May 14th, 2012, 06:33 PM

Der Scutt's masterpiece defiled!

(appropriate irony implied)

**Amanita** · May 14th, 2012, 10:17 PM

Irony? I take it you don't like One Astor? I love that crown, it was one of the first to break with the strict flat-roofed mandate of the International style.

**ttk** · May 14th, 2012, 11:50 PM

As I get older, I appreciate mid-century modernism more and more. However, One Astor Plaza will always be beyond any redemption, and is ugly as sin.

**Amanita** · May 15th, 2012, 12:26 AM

We'll have to agree to disagree then, I love Astor's crown and fins

I remember a local friend and I playfully hugging one of those fins when I was in town last october.
I've been doing some skyscraper-personification cosplay- I did One Penn Plaza last year, am doing San Remo of Central Park West this year, and One Astor is on my to-do list

**Derek2k3** · May 15th, 2012, 09:02 AM

That rendering is old and was never anything official.
And the last mentions of the reclad described something more keeping with the original--the fins are staying.

**scumonkey** · May 15th, 2012, 10:16 AM

Am I just becoming senile or...
Wasn't this already discussed (some while back), at length somewhere else on this board?
And wasn't it mentioned that the fins were a structural part of the building?

**Amanita** · May 15th, 2012, 04:26 PM

It must have happened before I joined up, I would like to see it for sure. And yes, I am sure those fins are part of the building- I think they're mechanical risers or something. A reclad that left that lovely crown and its fins alone wouldn't suck as much.