Reply With QuoteThat ^ gallery is incomplete without including these 3 slimeballs bringing up the rear...
Sam Chang
John Lam, Gene Kaufman
(I'd include Peter Poon too but just can't seem to locate a pic of that buffoon)
New York could have been one of the most beautiful cities in the world if Midtown still looked like this.
I hope swine like these pigs, who are intent on destroying our city even further, have been ruined by Bernie Madoff and that their rapacious greed will be put to an end.
That ^ gallery is incomplete without including these 3 slimeballs bringing up the rear...
Sam Chang
John Lam, Gene Kaufman
(I'd include Peter Poon too but just can't seem to locate a pic of that buffoon)
I agree with you.
Farmers' Loan & Trust Building (475 Fifth Ave.); 1926-Present; Moinian Group; Status: unknown
Past/Present:
Credit: MidtownGuy
Future:
Moinian has been trying, seemingly unsuccessfully, to find an anchor tenant and according to the website (475fifth.com) “a complete redevelopment will retain the grandeur of its past and embellish its future.” Could this mean the exterior will be cleaned up and otherwise left unchanged – with Moinian at the helm we should be very worried.
Losing this building to a glassy facade or new inferior building would be Drake-level criminal.
National City Bank Building (52 Wall Street) and 60 Wall Street; 1928-1980s, 1932-1977; Status: Where the massive post-modern building now stands there were once two neo-classic skyscrapers that graced Wall St. until the 1970s&80s.
Past:
The extraordinary 52 Wall has the Roman Temple on top on the far right of this photo:
52 & 60 Wall on Right:
60 Wall has the triangular pediment motif at the high left of this photo (52 Wall not yet built. Game: how many other tall, lost gems were replaced with inferiors in this photo (I spy 4 off the bat):
60 Wall at the far left:
60 Wall under the nose of the Hindenberg:
Both visible (albeit small) across from AIG:
Credit: Photos from http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showth...=34300&page=33 and www.nyc-architecture.com
Present:
^60 Wall: could have been a NYC favorite .....except that they put in the worst poossible location EVERRR; right in front of 2 NYC Classics, being much more of an obstrsive impostor instead of complementary and thereby one of NYC's most hated. Its a decent design except that it is too tall, too thick, too inferior for its location. Every time I look at its direction Im like: "Get the hell out of the way!"
Had it been in the west side, say....Battery Park this tower would have been much more liked.
^Maybe where Goldman Sachs is currently rising...
Er.. Are you sure that's midtown? I think it's Fifth avenue mansions across from Central Park. Most of them were razed in the 1900-1920's and replaced with middle-class "pre-war" buildings. Central Park West and West End avenue townhouses suffered the same fate: the rich fled to the suburbs, their elegant homes replaced with middle-class high-rises. Still, those are some of the most prestigious avenues in the city today: ironically, it's only the very rich who can afford those "middle-class" apartments today.Originally Posted by londonlawyer
New York could have been one of the most beautiful cities in the world if Midtown still looked like this.
The majority of cozy Federal rowhouses in Greenwich village were razed in the 1870's-90's, and replaced with tenements (the indomitable Andrew Berman wants landmark designation for 'South Village', which is nearly 100% cookie-cutter tenement buildings).
Surprisingly little is left of the first half of the 19th century downtown area: almost all razed and replaced with tenements, factories, and office buildings over the last 130 years.
Sorry, but complete disregard for history is not something the Moinians et al. invented yesterday: this city did not give a crap about architectural legacy up until the 1960's.
Anyway, midtown south (fifth, broadway, madison and the side-streets) is almost untouched by the last 70 years of development. Midtown north has way too many bland skyscrapers (the latest BoA included), but that's life. Manhattan is not a museum. It's a place that provides jobs to 2.2 million people.
What annoys me is the bureaucrats' effort in trying to protect tenement slums from being redeveloped (ridiculous zoning restrictions for LES and Hell's Kitchen). I hope some day we'll raze every tenement building in the city (except the one that houses the tenement museum) and replace it with more daring architecture (or fish tank highrises, sigh - though that's more of a commentary on today's tastes).
The beautiful residential parts of Manhattan (UES west of Lexington, UWS, Greenwich village, the cast-iron part of Soho) are all landmarked to death, so you have nothing to worry about.
Manhattan is a living, breathing, developing heart of a huge metropolis. It is NOT a museum! Whining about a few architecturally featureless rowhouses being lost to a condo development makes no sense in a city that has miles upon miles of beautiful brownstones in Brooklyn.
But really, let's get rid of the old tenement buildings first. And then those poop-colored low-rise brick boxes from the 40's and 50's.
Why not.....?Er.. Are you sure that's midtown?
There were many nice homes in the 30's
You can still find one at 25 Park at 35th
Those 2 in the foreground were the famous Vanderbilt twin brownstones and the one further downtown was Alva Vanderbilt's french chateau. They were on 5th avenue opposite the park. I'm not sure which cross street.
So we revert to pre-1960s?
What do you mean we'll? What have you got to do with it?What annoys me is the bureaucrats' effort in trying to protect tenement slums from being redeveloped (ridiculous zoning restrictions for LES and Hell's Kitchen). I hope some day we'll raze every tenement building in the city (except the one that houses the tenement museum) and replace it with more daring architecture (or fish tank highrises, sigh - though that's more of a commentary on today's tastes).
^ I'll bet that's a Freudian slip.
"We" vs. 'them'.
So.. we're (er.. you're) overcompensating now, crying over any generic building that is more than 70 years old being lost to much-needed development.
I'm a paid lobbyist for real estate interest groups.What do you mean we'll? What have you got to do with it?
As set forth below, this was W. K. Vanderbilt's home which was located at 660 Fifth Avenue.
Richard Morris Hunt, architect
Jpg: local (library of Congress)
Photo view looking along 5th Ave. showing W.H. Vanderbilt's house (1879-1881) -- the near one designed after William Morris Hunt by Herter Brothers and Charles B. Atwood, architects; and then W.K. Vanderbilt's house 660 Fifth Avenue (1877-1881), designed by Richard Morris Hunt, architect.
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