Reply With QuoteI dig the base but that has to be one of the uglies towers I've ever seen.
Crass and ungainly. Doesn't look good from any angle.
I dig the base but that has to be one of the uglies towers I've ever seen.
Billionaire Developer's 'Deteriorating Mental Condition' Revealed in Court
CURBED
By Joey
Monday, August 30, 2010
Tamir Sapir, Soviet-born cabbie turned Big Apple real estate titan, has had an interesting last few years. His company, the Sapir Organization, helped develop such high-profile buildings as Trump Soho. He bought (for $40 million) and sold (for $44 million) and was sued over Fifth Avenue's iconic Duke Semans Mansion. He pleaded guilty to bringing illegal endangered animal body parts into the country aboard his 150-foot yacht. Like we said, interesting times! But is he aware that any of it happened? According to his lawyer, probably not.
The William Beaver saga takes a strange turn. >>
His mental condition must have been deteriorated when he approved the design of this retarded looking POS.
I still contend this is one of the ugliest buildings in the city...
I don't mind it. Something better obviously could have (and should have) been built, but for NY's very low standards, it's not so bad.
Moreover, I can't bring myself to hate any beaver.
Please click on the following link from Youtube to watch the immortal Leslie Nielen (in The Naked Gun) saying to Priscilla Presley, as he looks up her dress: "Nice beaver!" It's awesome!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhyCL-ELRxg
Last edited by londonlawyer; November 29th, 2010 at 09:43 PM.
One of my favorite bits from a movie ever. There was an excellent bit on beavers on How I Met Your Mother last night. It was really spectacular. The only problem is that if you haven't been watching the show all these years, the Robin Sparkles stuff doesn't exactly make sense.
Anyone who chose to move into the building must have had a mental condition to begin with.Originally Posted by londonlawyer
The latest AIA assessment of New York, which exhibits overly positive attitudes toward each and every building, has dubbed this one "the Post-It Note Tower".
I had never considered that, but it would be an intriguingly kitschy upgrade to WRITE things on each of the yellow squares. To the credit of the building, it really does "work" twice a day. It is meant to mimic a sunrise/set, and it actually looks awesome with the sun rising/setting behind it. Unfortunately that accounts for all of 30 minutes a day from 2 very specific locations. What to do the rest of the time?
Posting
At William Beaver House, Unsold Condos Now for Rent
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
The 47-story William Beaver House, its facade flecked with yellow brick, now has unsold units available for rent.
By FRED A. BERNSTEIN
Published: January 27, 2011
THE William Beaver House, at the intersection of William and Beaver Streets in the financial district, is an eye-catching 47-story building, its facade flecked with panels of yellow brick that, architecturally speaking, give it the look of a taxicab amid a fleet of limousines.
Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
The financial district condominium offers amenities including a rooftop party room.
Inside, the lavish amenities include a 40-seat screening room, a lap pool, a basketball court with stadium lighting, and a landscaped dog run. It also has a “lifestyle manager,” who bristles at the title “concierge,” which, she said she associated with polyester neckties, not the high-level services she provides for Beaver House residents.
Now those residents will include not only owners, but also renters. In December, the CIM Group, a real estate investment company based in Los Angeles, stepped in to bail out Tamir Sapir, the Georgian émigré who developed the 320-unit building as a condominium.
As part of the $66 million deal, CIM took possession of the building’s 209 unsold units.
Almost immediately, the company made them available for rent. Tenants are being offered one-year leases, though the sales manager, Edward Azria of Rose Associates, said that a lease term of 18 or 24 months “would be a negotiable item.”
The 209 rental units are scattered throughout the building; they include one-bedrooms starting at $3,200 a month and studios at $3,550. (The smaller units command higher prices because they are on higher floors, according to Mr. Azria.) There are also several two-bedrooms, starting at $4,800, and three-bedrooms, at $8,500.
Back in 2007 the developer, armed with a sexy marketing campaign, hoped to sell the units at prices ranging from $900,000 to well over $2 million. About 100 closings took place in 2008 and 2009, according to PropertyShark. But after the market took a nosedive, Mr. Sapir’s company, the Sapir Organization, was reportedly unable to make payments on a $66 million loan. That’s when CIM stepped in, paying off the loan to acquire the units for an average of just over $300,000 each.
The building was conceived by the hotelier André Balazs and aimed at the kind of young sybarites who stay in his hotels, including the Standard in Manhattan and the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. To design the building Mr. Balazs selected Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown, of Tsao & McKown Architects, known for the refined detailing of their homes for well-heeled clients like Meryl Streep and Mr. Balazs’s sometime competitor Ian Schrager.
Tsao & McKown gave the bathrooms louvered doors that open to expose the tubs to the bedrooms (and, in many cases, to spectacular New York Harbor views). There are also large showers behind glass panels, where Tsao & McKown addressed a problem many other designers have ignored: a hole in the glass lets you reach the faucet — adjusting temperature and pressure — before you step into the shower.
Tsao & McKown also designed what Mr. Azria calls “Murphy offices” installed behind sliding closet doors, with woodwork as well crafted as anything on an oligarch’s yacht.
Equally refined are the “Murphy kitchens,” compact units of sleek cabinets and appliances, extremely handsome but with precious little work space. Mr. Tsao said: “The bathrooms are bigger than the kitchens, but that’s how people live. You come home from work not to cook a meal, but to decompress. It’s the mise-en-scène of a contemporary life.”
Mr. Tsao, told that some units would be rented out, said potential tenants “are lucky that, because of economic hardship, they can get something built” at a time when developers were competing to create the most luxurious buildings. “Rentals,” he said, “are never built to that standard.”
Still, not all the building’s planned amenities have materialized. What was going to be a Dean & DeLuca store off the lobby is still a vacant space. (Mr. Mendel said CIM was seeking a “first-class restaurant or food and beverage operator.”) Mr. Balazs also failed to win approval for a 195-space parking garage below the building. (CIM hopes to correct that, too.) And a conversation pit, on original lobby renderings, has yet to be installed. Mr. Tsao said the pit, “constructed by a wonderful cabinetmaker that I found in China,” was being stored, in pieces, in a warehouse in Long Island City. “I hope they put it in,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/re...ref=realestate
LOL!
Unmentioned Luxury
To the Editor:
Your article of Jan. 30, “A Lavish Lifestyle, and Now Renters, Too,” describes some of the amenities of William Beaver House.
But you failed to mention the greatest benefit to prospective renters. William Beaver House is the only building in New York City from which you are guaranteed that you cannot see the ugliest building in New York City, William Beaver House.
(Yes, I can see WBH from my windows.) Mary Foutz
Brooklyn Heights
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/re...er=rss&emc=rss
Having to look at those Kaufman-grade yellow LEGO blocks right outside my window? No thanks.
Actually. I'm wrong. I'm not exaggerating: a wall actually built of LEGO would look more graceful than that - at least it would have smooth edges, nice connections (instead of that unfinished mortar schlock) and a nice glimmer when viewed from afar. If your architecture is worse than LEGO, then... I'm sorry.
GALAK P2V
Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.
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