120 West 57th Street - by Harry B. Mulliken : The demise of a beauty

**londonlawyer** · November 29th, 2010, 02:12 PM

The following sad news re: the demise of 57th Street was posted on Mullah Kaufman's website. This travesty is courtesy of the schmucks at Ark.

http://www.gkapc.com/pdf/2010/201010...iness(web).pdf

**antinimby** · November 29th, 2010, 08:40 PM

That's got to be the ultimate architectural injustice: demolishing a beautiful pre-war for Gene Kaufman poop.

**londonlawyer** · November 29th, 2010, 09:35 PM

I agree with you. It's a real kick in the ba.lls.

**dbhstockton** · March 13th, 2011, 11:16 PM

I'm late to the conversation, but here's a February 28th post from Roman and Williams' blog, with a new(-ish) rendering: http://romanandwilliamsnews.blogspot...vin-on-up.html The encouraging news is that they say that they are doing the "exterior design."

Short of not demolishing what's there already, I only wish they could add 4-stories before the setback to keep the classic streetwall. With Roman and Williams detailing the the exterior, there's hope for this building.

Here's the rendering:

**dbhstockton** · March 13th, 2011, 11:47 PM

And then there's this. Stephen Alesch, one of the two principals at R&W, apparently is in the habit of personally responding to comments posted on Curbed. If you scroll down the page (http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/0...tory_hotel.php), here's his response to the naysayers:

"I really think you all will like it. its going to be a notable building with nice features in and out, and of course built to last! We are expert material and connection specialists, meet and beat code, and we like things to be really, really good looking . RW has always been staffed by talented hardworking architects, some licensed and all formally educated and professional interior designers. Ever since we formally opened our office in 2002."

**londonlawyer** · March 14th, 2011, 07:15 AM

Kandahar. That was a stunning building. Amazingly, moreover, 52-56 W 57th Street continues to be an empty, third-world building with two adjacent, rubble-strewn lots and the Ritz Fur lot remains empty.

**londonlawyer** · July 20th, 2012, 02:50 PM

While I'm not happy about the loss of the old structure and would have preferred something much nice than what's rising here, the new tower is still nicer than 95% of new buildings in Manhattan. I walked by on July 19th, and it has beautiful windows with black grids.

**Stroika** · July 21st, 2012, 06:10 AM

Originally Posted by londonlawyer

While I'm not happy about the loss of the old structure and would have preferred something much nice than what's rising here, the new tower is still nicer than 95% of new buildings in Manhattan. I walked by on July 19th, and it has beautiful windows with black grids.

That's just the front of it. The massive blank side walls won't be too hot

**londonlawyer** · July 21st, 2012, 07:05 AM

That's true.

**RoldanTTLB** · July 21st, 2012, 10:49 AM

I don't think the blank wall to the west will make it through out lifetimes. The one to the east isn't going anywhere because of the archway that's there, but the building just east of that will go, and then there will only be 20 feet between blank walls. If this comes out like the renderings, though, it will be pretty snappy.