Reply With QuoteWith respect to 440 Park, that is a world-class location that should have supported a world-class tower -- not the squat glass box that Macklowe proposed. 440 Park is not a mid-block parcel on 47th Street.
Why is he a schmuck? You just said you understand "the economics of a project result in certain designs."
So why don't you understand the "economics" of his projects?
With respect to 440 Park, that is a world-class location that should have supported a world-class tower -- not the squat glass box that Macklowe proposed. 440 Park is not a mid-block parcel on 47th Street.
Relax, amigo, and think of good things.
Last edited by londonlawyer; November 12th, 2009 at 01:43 PM.
^ I may have to resort to illustrating my posts with pics of gorgeous guys to even things up a bit if this carries on.
Ya gotta do ^ what ya gotta do. All's fair ...
Go on Merry, I won't object!
Post away, amigo!Originally Posted by Merry
^ I may have to resort to illustrating my posts with pics of gorgeous guys to even things up a bit if this carries on
City Council Influences Landmarks Decision
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Last week the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 6 to 3 to give landmark protection to the 100-year-old B. F. Goodrich tire company building on Broadway just north of 57th Street, but not to a connected building around the corner designed by the same architect at the same time. Some commission members on both sides of that unusual divided vote cried foul, complaining that politics played an inappropriate role.
The vote came after four City Council members signaled that the council might overturn a commission decision to confer landmark designation on the second building because they did not want to jeopardize a hotel tower planned for the site at Broadway and 57th Street. The commission’s chairman, Robert B. Tierney, then recommended a vote against landmark status for both buildings “in light of opposition to this designation from the City Council and certain members of the City Council and the likelihood that that body will overturn any designation.”
Christopher Moore, a commission member who had voted with the majority, said the council should not have been a factor in the commission’s decision.
Mr. Moore said in an interview: “To me, it’s embarrassingly transparent: ‘We’re not going to do this because the City Council has already notified us they’re going to veto it.’ We let the world know. The friction between the commission and its role and the City Council and its role needs to be exposed. My request is we don’t do this again.”
The City Council has the legal authority to overturn landmark designations; in 2005 it vetoed the designations of the Jamaica Savings Bank building in Elmhurst, Queens, and Cass Gilbert’s Austin, Nichols waterfront warehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The commission voted on Nov. 9 to designate 1780 Broadway and to remove from consideration a smaller building at 225 West 57th Street in Manhattan. Both buildings — a mixture of limestone and brick with influences ranging from Elizabethan to Vienna Succession — were designed by the Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw and were completed in 1909 on a strip once known as Automobile Row; they are thought to be his only surviving buildings in New York.
The Extell Development Corporation plans to develop the project, which would extend into several buildings, into a 50-story hotel with apartments or offices. Extell had warned that a landmark designation for the smaller building would endanger the project.
Mr. Tierney said in an interview that while the commission’s primary concern was landmark worthiness, it also has “a responsibility to weigh all the information before us to make discretionary judgments based on the facts.”
Extell’s president, Gary Barnett, said the vote could be seen as “a good compromise” in the context of the city’s economic ill health. Daniel R. Garodnick, one of the council members who questioned the merit of landmarking the second building, said, “No one complains when the City Council speaks in favor of a building.”
In the 2009 election cycle, Extell made campagn contributions to three of the four councilmembers who questioned the designation of both buildings, as well as to other councilmembers.
The three members of the commission who voted no to landmarking one building without the other contended that both were architecturally or historically important and should not be separated. One of them, Roberta Brandes Gratz, said in an interview that she also objected to what she saw as political pressure. “Intimidation by the City Council should not have an impact on our votes,” she said.
Preservationists also said the commission should not have taken Extell’s concerns into account. “The landmarks commission is not supposed to be considering the development potential of the site,” said Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of Columbia University’s historic preservation program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/ar...9goodrich.html
Garodnick: A moron, or just on the take?
I really don't understand this Garodnick. He's been the most vehement opponent of architecturally ambitious projects like Nouvel's Tour Verre at MoMA and Solow's project (now, thanks in part to Garodnick, hollowed-out and reduced to a few 350-foot glass boxes) on the East River. Both of those sites were/are vacant, and there was nothing that needed to be destroyed to build. But he opposed the projects because of the "shadows" they'd create, accusing the developers of "profiting" off of residents' happiness, etc.
Now, it turns out he's not even anti-development or a blatant populist. When there's a fairly significant historical structure with architectural bona fides and a legitimate concern of the LPC, he yields to the developer who doesn't even have a design figured out yet. Very responsible.
Point being, I can't figure out what ants are in this guy's head. Is he:
a) Incredibly moronic and utterly without reason,
b) A not-very-successful populist sailing by what he thinks is the people's astrolabe, or
c) Just extremely corrupt and paid off ("campaign donations") by Extell but not Hines or Solow?
Last edited by Stroika; November 19th, 2009 at 11:22 AM.
d) all of the above.
225 West 57th Street
Do you doubt for one second that Garodnicks' motives are anything other than "to serve man".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudBfRa0ETw
Doesn't look like anything's doing:
Inching forward on West 58th?
Recent shots (12.08.09) showing indications of Pre-Demo work at both Landmark High School building and the old walk up next door at 226 W 58th: Spray painted boxes indicating de-ratting (dated 11/09). The sign on the door of the walk up gives notice of "POISON" inside. DOB shows Permitted Demo App for 226, but no Demo App as of yet for Landmark High @ 216-224. Morton Williams is still open at 228-230.
For the main site, listed at DOB as 1780 Broadway, a search of Jobs / Filings shows that Demo Apps / New Building Apps have not been filed.
Thanks, Lofter.
When I lived on CPS, I always hated this stretch of 58th. It was so disgusting. Fortunately, a full makeover for the north and south side of the streets. That high school makes me ill.
Do you know when Morton Williams will close?
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