[JACKinBeantown]

So when is this Gehry building design actually supposed to be announced?

[buildup]

I'd like to know the same thing. I heard it would be in a month 3 months ago. Are they over the problems with nimbys, the current owners'space in the building and the school in the lower floors?

[NYguy]

I'd like to know the same thing. I heard it would be in a month 3 months ago. Are they over the problems with nimbys, the current owners'space in the building and the school in the lower floors?


The problem with the NIMBYS was what actually increased the height. That doesn't happen very often. The issue with the school was resolved (see earlier posting). We are simply waiting on a final design.

[STERNyc]

No mention of the Gehry project, but a follow up to the topic of the first page article:

NYSUN:

How Much for a World-Historic Home?

BY JAMES GARDNER
May 2, 2005

At this time, the most classical architect in America and perhaps the world is none other than Richard Meier. Surely this arch-Modernist, who doesn't have a vernacular bone in his body, would never be caught dead fluting a pilaster, dentilating an architrave, rusticating a base, or engaging in any other of those postmodern tricks so dear to a goodly percentage of the profession.

Yet modernism at its best comes closer to classicism at its best than does any slavish re-enactment of the latter, and Mr. Meier's new building at 165 Charles Street, together with the Perry Street Towers he completed two years ago, just to the north, calls for the sort of formalist analysis usually reserved for comparisons between, say, the Parthenon and the Hephaesteum in Athens. Which is to say that, in structures so closely matched, the slightest difference takes on a critical importance.

The two Perry Street Towers are nearly identical (and for the sake of this discussion, I will treat them as such). Although they are importantly different from 165 Charles Street, a 16-story structure with 31 units, they are so close in style and massing that an unsuspecting viewer might well suppose that the three buildings were intended as a self-contained triad.

I have heard reports, however, that Mr. Meier, who designed only the exterior shells of the Perry Street Towers, was somewhat dissatisfied with elements of their detailing. In interviews, he has lamented the dread imposition of "value engineering" - in other words, cost-cutting measures that invariably cheapen the finished product.

On Charles Street he has taken matters into his own hands. The free flowing interiors are done up in that pale, white minimalism that has become Mr. Meier's signature style and that graces everything from the living rooms and bedrooms to the Gaggenau stoves and the Zuma bathtubs. The building also boasts climate-controlled wine cellars, a pool and fitness center, and a 35-seat screening room.

As for the exteriors, though they are impressive on Perry Street, they are even better on Charles. Just as the columnar width of the Hephaesteum and the regularity of its triglyphs fall just short of the brittle energy that distinguishes the same elements in the Parthenon, so 165 Charles Street causes us to see, through its slightly finer detailing, something ungainly in its twinned forebears to the north.

The balconies on the two earlier buildings, open to the south and west, created an asymmetry that reflected Mr. Meier's brief flirtation with Deconstructivism. On Charles Street, however, symmetry is triumphantly restored to the facade - though at the price of glazing and the closing off of the balconies to the west. The result is that 165 Charles Street cultivates an air of consistency throughout, while the two earlier towers seem, within the context of their modernist sobriety, to court variety.

Will the inhabitants be willing to sacrifice openness for the sake of artistic integrity? Probably.

At the same time, the frame-like, superimposed grid that covers most of the riverside facades on Perry Street dissolves on Charles Street into pure curtain wall. Were they not set cheek-by-jowl with the Charles Street tower, we might never realize the comparative thickness, even heaviness, that characterizes the vertical elements of the earlier buildings.

The only emphatic element of the new facade is a grooved delineation that runs down the middle from the summit to the base and boldly asserts the structure's resurgent symmetry. At the same time, the band of white that crowns the Charles Street penthouse is broader and thinner than the ones on Perry Street, a minute adjustment that greatly enhances the feeling of sheerness and openness in the newer building.

If you have leafed through the real estate pages of late, you may have seen an ad for 165 Charles Street, together with an image of the architect, who recently turned 70, leaning back with an air of curious and daring imbalance. He smiles under his signature white mane - as pale as the curtain walls and I-beams of his most classic structures. The ad reads: "Pure Richard Meier Privileges." This is one of the rare instances in New York of residential real estate exploiting the fame of the architect as a marketing device.

Now as everyone in the five boroughs knows, real estate is the silly obsession of New Yorkers of every stripe, especially when it comes to trophy buildings like these, conspicuous not only for their river views and elegance but also for their commodity value. (And in case anyone cares, the Perry Street Towers already domicile the likes of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, as well as other celebrities who, though worthy, don't come from Australia.)

But there is an interesting difference between the rabid appetite for an apartment in, say, the Dakota, and for one in a Richard Meier tower. In the first instance, you are purchasing a piece of the history of New York. In the second, a piece of the history of architecture itself, of Western culture, is up for sale.

This sort of thing is becoming ever more common in New York. New high-rises designed by Robert Stern, Michael Graves, and Philip Johnson are already up, while others by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and Richard Gluckman are approaching completion. But the real games will begin when Santiago Calatrava's 90-story modular concatenation at 80 South Street starts to rise up against the skyline. The clamorous drive to get in will be something to see.

Though the spectacle will be as dismaying for those of a philosophic turn as it will be entertaining for everyone else, on balance it is a good thing for Gotham. Even if most projects do not achieve the pyrotechnics of Mr. Calatrava or the Apollonian perfection of Richard Meier, there is a sense that Manhattan, for the first time in almost 100 years, is beginning to build residential towers of real distinction.

[NYguy]

New high-rises designed by Robert Stern, Michael Graves, and Philip Johnson are already up, while others by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates and Richard Gluckman are approaching completion. But the real games will begin when Santiago Calatrava's 90-story modular concatenation at 80 South Street starts to rise up against the skyline. The clamorous drive to get in will be something to see.

Though the spectacle will be as dismaying for those of a philosophic turn as it will be entertaining for everyone else, on balance it is a good thing for Gotham. Even if most projects do not achieve the pyrotechnics of Mr. Calatrava or the Apollonian perfection of Richard Meier, there is a sense that Manhattan, for the first time in almost 100 years, is beginning to build residential towers of real distinction.


I only wish Calatrava's tower was 90-stories tall. The new wave of apartment towers in NY will be something to see....

[Lecom]

That was a cool article but way too nerdy, too many SAT words.

[RLS_rls]

Isn't Philip Johnson dead? And since when was Calatrava's tower 90 floors? I though it was only like 54 because of the design.

[NYguy]

Isn't Philip Johnson dead? And since when was Calatrava's tower 90 floors? I though it was only like 54 because of the design.


It's not 90 stories.

[STERNyc]

Its the equivalent of 90 stories. The zoning of the site cannot support a 90 storey building, although in all honesty is would typically only support a 10 or 12 storey building in the first place.

[NYguy]

At around 830 ft to the roof, I would put it more at "80" stories.

[igzaklee]

it's sold out.

:)

[Daquan13]

Sold out?

[STERNyc]

Yeah, second that, sold out?

What's your source, as far as I know that's technically impossible since they haven't filed an offering plan yet and units can't be offered or sold.

[Daquan13]

I'm just asking the question.

No need to get technical. Didn't know that it was sold out.

[STERNyc]

I'm just asking the question.

No need to get technical. Didn't know that it was sold out.

Expand you're vocabulary, second that, means I have the same question.

[Daquan13]

(Edit)

[igzaklee]

Real estate agent.

Maybe it's not true, but it sure seemed that way when I was notified...

[Procurator]

Please, forget it.

I'm not going to argue with you. I've had enough.

What's your problem? He made a post saying he has the same question as you.

:confused:

[Fabb]

What's your source, as far as I know that's technically impossible since they haven't filed an offering plan yet and units can't be offered or sold.

Which project are we talking about ? Gehry's or Calatrava's ?
I'm confused.

[Daquan13]

Please, forget it.

I'm not going to argue with you. I've had enough.

What's your problem? He made a post saying he has the same question as you.

:confused:



No one is talkiing to you, dude.

[STERNyc]

What's your source, as far as I know that's technically impossible since they haven't filed an offering plan yet and units can't be offered or sold.

Which project are we talking about ? Gehry's or Calatrava's ?
I'm confused.

As far as Im aware neither project have yet to offer an offering plan which must be filed with the NY DA before units can go on sale. Although it was rumoured 80 South Street could begin offering units as soon as April, I've heard no news of that happening.

[Daquan13]

What's your source, as far as I know that's technically impossible since they haven't filed an offering plan yet and units can't be offered or sold.

Which project are we talking about ? Gehry's or Calatrava's ?
I'm confused.

As far as Im aware neither project have yet to offer an offering plan which must be filed with the NY DA before units can go on sale. Although it was rumoured 80 South Street could begin offering units as soon as April, I've heard no news of that happening.



Sorry STERNyc,

I took your other post the wrong way. I appolligize for that mistake. I was wrong.

[STERNyc]

Sorry STERNyc,

I took your other post the wrong way. I appolligize for that mistake. I was wrong.

Its alright.

[STERNyc]

Gulcrapek posted a preliminary rendering of Beekman Place at Wired New York:

http://www.pbase.com/archit_kderek2k3/image/43918317.jpg

Can't tell much from the rendering, only thing you can see for sure is that it will be big!

[Stephenapolis]

Thanks for sharing. It does look like it will be big. Too bad we can't make out the tower better.

[JMGarcia]

^Its Gehry. Its not supposed to have a shape, or details, or edges, or.... ;)

[Fabb]

Gulcrapek posted a preliminary rendering of Beekman Place at Wired New York:

http://www.pbase.com/archit_kderek2k3/image/43918317.jpg

Can't tell much from the rendering, only thing you can see for sure is that it will be big!

The massing of this tower looks just fine. What a presence !

[igzaklee]

:crazy: :glow: :cool:

[FerrariEnzo]

That is one VERY large tower. It looks like a glass and aluminum undulation of a wave, very cool!

[Stu]

I guess it's over 1000 ft. It looks it in the rendering.

[bayrider]

can't really say much from the picture except that its big. Whats the point of releasing a picture this small anyways? no one can make anything out of it

[buildup]

Looks like a really big tower. When a rendering with more detail comes out I'll celebrate more.

[STR]

I enhanced the above photo to take out some of the noise and enhance its quality. While I couldn't do much due to the horrible quality of the pic, I think I made the slight hourglass appearence of the building a little more apparent.

http://img27.echo.cx/img27/3467/bm14xy.jpg

[Gulcrapek]

Good job.

[Daquan13]

Kind of blurry.

[STR]

^No kidding.

Well I ran it through GIMP again and I think I might have over-sharpened it, but here's attempt #2. I'll leave #1 up so y'all can pick your preference.

http://img64.echo.cx/img64/7034/bm29oz.jpg

[Daquan13]

A tad better, but still blurry.

[Islander]

I still can't tell ANYTHING from that photo aside from massing. I don't even know what the heck that dark line running down the middle is.

[STR]

^That would probably be a corner.

[STERNyc]

Yeah, its a corner. Who knows if its going to look like this, but from the looks of it, the more slender sides are rounded and the longer two sides set back 2/3's of the height, the rounded corners frame the setback, the entire height.

[STR]

It also seems to flare at the top and bottom. All in all pretty good for a Gehry. I was dreading NY Times proposal reloaded. I think this one will be okay as long as the NIMBYs or the Dev don't #$%@ it up.

BTW Good catch on the setbacks. I didn't see them, even though I've spent a good 30 minutes today looking at that image.

[carfreak01]

I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing. I think we're looking at a rectangular tower straight on. The dark line in the middle isn't a corner, but a halfway mark on the longer side. It looks like on the longer sides there are two wave-like facades running vertically, each taking half the length of the wall, and at the middle is where they meet...............? I confused myself. I hope you all see what I mean.

[Islander]

To me it also looks like we're looking at a flat wall straight on. Otherwise, you top of the building wouldn't look flat perfectly flat, it would appear to spike up slightly due to perspective. If that black line is a corner, it must be the corner of some sort of projections (like the things on the sides of the Center in Hong Kong).

[NYguy]

I enhanced the above photo to take out some of the noise and enhance its quality. While I couldn't do much due to the horrible quality of the pic, I think I made the slight hourglass appearence of the building a little more apparent.

http://img27.echo.cx/img27/3467/bm14xy.jpg


Looks larger than I thought it would be, considering the space. But that could just be from the angle.

Seems it will have as much presence as the Freedom Tower from the Brooklyn bridge. There does seem to be a slight "hourglass" shape at the top. Similar I guess to the NY Times proposal..

http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/gehry/images/projects/projects_images/ny_times13_lg.jpg

[Daquan13]

Oh, is THAT what that is?

The giant crimpled shopping shopping bag that looks like it came from Filiene's, Macy's, Nordstrom or Meiman Marcus?

How on earth can someone call THAT architecture?

[STERNyc]

To me it also looks like we're looking at a flat wall straight on. Otherwise, you top of the building wouldn't look flat perfectly flat, it would appear to spike up slightly due to perspective. If that black line is a corner, it must be the corner of some sort of projections (like the things on the sides of the Center in Hong Kong).

Im not going to argue whether its straight on or not. Personally I think it could only be at an angle, in a rough model he's not going to draw a line down the center. But your point about the top of the building is unfounded here since every other building in the elevation has the same roofline.

[STERNyc]

Oh, is THAT what that is?

The giant shopping crimpled bag that looks like it came from Filiene's, Macy's, Nordstrom or Meiman Marcus?

How on earth can someone call that architecture?

You know your department stores.

[try 2B funny]

Finally a REAL descendant of World Trade Center

[Daquan13]

Oh, is THAT what that is?

The giant crimpled shopping bag that looks like it came from Filiene's, Macy's, Nordstrom or Meiman Marcus?

How on earth can someone call THAT architecture?

You know your department stores.



Heh, heh, heh, heh.:yes: :yes: :yes: :yes: :yes: :hilarious :hilarious :hilarious :hilarious :hilarious

[NYguy]

JUNE 5, 2005

The new tower will rise here on the skyline:


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/44430905/large.jpg


http://www.pbase.com/nyguy/image/44430908/large.jpg

[Lecom]

A guy I know, in his fifties now or something, helped design Citicorp by the way, said they used to play cards during classes in Pace. Nice pics by the way.

[NYguy]

DOWNTOWN EXPRESS

Dispute over space at proposed Beekman St. school

By Ronda Kaysen

Designs for a new pre-K-8 school on Beekman St. do not include a schoolyard for the children to gather or an auditorium large enough to accommodate the entire student body, according to Community Board 1 members who saw the renditions.

School officials hoped to use an outdoor plaza as a schoolyard for the 600 students, but New York Downtown Hospital, which will also have a facility in the Frank Gehry-designed building, voiced concerns about noise and other disruptions caused by a large gathering of school children so close to the hospital facility.

Hospital officials requested that developer Bruce Ratner revise the space allocations to better accommodate the hospital, according to C.B. 1 members.

“The hospital has put certain limitations on what they want to see. They seem to have a problem with children and noise,” said C.B. 1 member Marc Donnenfeld at a June 23 Youth and Education Committee meeting. Earlier designs of the 4-story, 98,000 sq. ft. school included a schoolyard in the plaza, but they were nixed after the hospital reviewed them, according to Donnenfeld. “The key player here is the hospital,” he said.

The community board plans to meet with the hospital and Ratner in the coming weeks, with the help of State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who brokered a deal between the city and the developer last February to place the school in the Beekman St. buidling. “They [the hospital] need to know that there is leverage being exerted,” said Youth Committee Chairperson Paul Hovitz at the meeting. Downtown Hospital sold the site – currently a parking lot – to Forest City Ratner, Bruce Ratner’s development firm, last December.

Hospital officials declined to comment for this story.

In the revised design, a rooftop garden is used in lieu of the plaza as a playground for the children, a spokesperson for the Education Department told Downtown Express. The school sits in the lower levels of the 1 million sq. ft., mixed-use development, and the rooftop garden sits atop one of the building’s lower tiers.

Community board members are hoping to use the rooftop garden as a second, enclosed, gymnasium. The school currently has one gym and a multi-purpose recreation room. “The school will have the same gym space as any public school building of that size; it is not compromised in any way,” said a Dept. of Ed. spokesperson in an e-mail to Downtown Express.

The rooftop garden was initially intended for the hospital, but in negotiations with the developer, the hospital ceded the garden to the school.

The school’s auditorium can accommodate only half of the student body at a time and although current designs include a multi-purpose room, the school only has one gymnasium for all eight grades. Many pre-K-8 schools have separate gym facilities for the lower and upper grades. “We’re putting all this energy into building a school that may not be adequate,” said board member George Olsen.

“It’s a zoned school and they’re designing it for 600 kids. But if 800 kids show up, they have to take them. It’s going to open crowded,” said David Feiner, an aide to City Councilmember Alan Gerson, at the meeting.

Several board members suggested seeking additional square footage for the 98,000 sq. ft. school. The Dept. of Ed., however, has no plans to lobby the developer for a larger school, noting that the school already is larger than the original plans by 10,000 sq. ft.

As for the auditorium: many schools with large student bodies do not have an auditorium large enough to accommodate all the students at the same time, said the department spokesperson. The Beekman St. school, with a $65 million price tag, is the most expensive school the department has ever built.

The school will not be the first to open with noticeable shortcomings. “The Board of Ed is desperate for schools. They’ll take anything and now they’re realizing [the limitations] and they’re scrambling,” Finer said, citing nearby Millennium High School, which moved into an office building in 2003 without a gymnasium. Students spent the first school year in the new school traveling to the McBurney YMCA on 14th St. for sports activities.

The city agreed last September to create a school on the East Side of Lower Manhattan with $44 million in capital funds from the Dept. of Ed. and $20 million from the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. If the cost of developing the school soars above budget Ratner will pay the difference, the developer told Downtown Express in February.

[Lecom]

The kids with too much energy vs the elderly that are too sick to lift themselves up. Tough battle.

[knarfor]

In the revised design, a rooftop garden is used in lieu of the plaza as a playground for the children, a spokesperson for the Education Department told Downtown Express. The school sits in the lower levels of the 1 million sq. ft., mixed-use development, and the rooftop garden sits atop one of the building’s lower tiers.

So the building will have tiers. Interesting.

[NYguy]

So the building will have tiers. Interesting.

Yeah, I find these little details of the evolving design give us insight into the overall look of the building. I wonder if they could add an extra floor of space for the school, even though it is already larger than originally planned. It just doesn't make sense to build a new school that will be overcrowded before its even open. Add a couple of more floors, and push the tower upward. If rezoning is necessary, the city could do it. Its a fair tradeoff.

[STERNyc]

Posted at Wired New York by senior member pianoman11686 :

From http://cityrealty.com:

Rattner/Gehry Lower Manhattan tower to start construction in January 20-JUL-05

Construction of the 75-story mixed-use tower on a parking lot just south of Pace University and just west of the NYU Downtown Hospital near City Hall is expected to start in January, according to Mark Donnenfeld, the chairman of the Seaport committee of Community Board 1.

The committee was given a presentation last night by Andrew Herman of the Department of Transportation of the planned reconstruction of Beekman Street, which is the southern boundary of the tower, which is being developed by Forest City Rattner and designed by Frank Gehry.

Rattner and Gehry have also teamed up for a massive project in Brooklyn that will create a new arena for the New York Nets as well as a phalanx of angled, tall office and residential towers, a plan that was recently heralded on the front page of The New York Times as creating a new skyline for Brooklyn. Forest City Rattner is the developer of a new headquarters under construction on Eighth Avenue at 40th Street for The New York Times. The Rattner/Gehry plan for Brooklyn was soon followed by a competing and smaller proposal for much of the same site from Extell Management.

The Rattner/Gehry design for the new tower to the south of the Manhattan entrance and exit to the Brooklyn Bridge has not yet been shown publicly or even shown to Community Board 1.

Mr. Donnenfeld said that the 75-story tower will be placed on the west end of the site with a 13,000-square-foot plaza at the east end. The tower will contain a new, 600-student6 public school as well as expansion facilities for the hospital. Originally, it was also intended to contain expansion facilities for Pace University, but that institution withdrew from the plan last year. The tower will also contain a mix of several hundred rental and condominium apartments, but not details have been released.

Apart from the planned Freedom Tower at the former World Trade Center site not far away, this tower is one of the most anticipated designs in the city along with Santiago Calatrava’s planned tower at 80 South Street for Frank Sciame. Gehry’s design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has been widely hailed as one of the most important designs of the last century and it catapulted him to the top of the list of the world’s most influential architects. He designed a somewhat similar design for the same museum for a site south of the South Street Seaport along the East River but the museum abandoned the project recently because of funding concerns. Gehry also had submitted a design for the new tower for The New York Times, but he subsequently withdrew from that project, so this tower will be his first major project to be built in Manhattan.

In a September 5, 2004 article in The New York Times, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote that Gehry’s design for this tower “is conceived as a series of undulating glass panels that hang down over the building’s structural frame like flowing drapery,” adding that “The curtain-like surfaces split apart at various points, then peel open at the top to create an almost classical crown.”

The rebuilding of Beekman Street and its sidewalks is expected to take about 18 months, according to Mr. Herman, but Mr. Donnenfeld said that such a schedule would be “total hell” and “not acceptable,” given the simultaneous start of construction of the Rattner/Gehry tower and the fact that several of the surrounding buildings are residential and landmarks.

The new school is not expected to open before 2008.

[NYguy]

Construction of the 75-story mixed-use tower on a parking lot just south of Pace University and just west of the NYU Downtown Hospital near City Hall is expected to start in January, according to Mark Donnenfeld, the chairman of the Seaport committee of Community Board 1.

The Rattner/Gehry design for the new tower to the south of the Manhattan entrance and exit to the Brooklyn Bridge has not yet been shown publicly or even shown to Community Board 1.

Apart from the planned Freedom Tower at the former World Trade Center site not far away, this tower is one of the most anticipated designs in the city along with Santiago Calatrava’s planned tower at 80 South Street for Frank Sciame.


So this tower will get a month or two headstart on both the Freedom and Calatrava towers. That's nice, but I'm ready for the design already.

[Fabb]

Why don't they release the design to the press ?
Are they afraid we're going to be shocked or something ?

[STERNyc]

Why don't they release the design to the press ?
Are they afraid we're going to be shocked or something ?

I emailed Ratner about this. There is no design or height to release as Gehry is still designing the building.

[Fabb]

OK.
Ratner is probably not happy with the preliminary design ... assuming that he has seen one.

[NYguy]

Why don't they release the design to the press ?
Are they afraid we're going to be shocked or something ?

I wouldn't mind being shocked with the height. Higher than expected, not lower. Gehry in Brooklyn, Gehry in Manhattan. I wonder if he'll ever get to Queens...

[billyblancoNYCII]

Why don't they release the design to the press ?
Are they afraid we're going to be shocked or something ?

I wouldn't mind being shocked with the height. Higher than expected, not lower. Gehry in Brooklyn, Gehry in Manhattan. I wonder if he'll ever get to Queens...

LIC awaits...

[buildup]

How can you start construction in January if you don't have a final design yet?

[Fabb]

The excavation can probably start without a finalized design.

[NYguy]

The excavation can probably start without a finalized design.


Yeah, we've seen that before...(Bloomberg Tower)

[STERNyc]

And Trump World Tower. It wasn't untill renderings were released and the tower was at its 39th floor that people had problems with its construction. Its really a smart technique for execution.

[Fabb]

Are you sure ?
Weren't there legal actions against the tower before the construction ?

[STERNyc]

Are you sure ?
Weren't there legal actions against the tower before the construction ?

No. There was actually controversy over how the buildings department could so simply approve a 72 storey building in the first place. The reason was simple, it was sight unseen, it was low key, and it was not submitted by Trump himself. The building was built entirely as-of-right like Beekman Place will be so there was, or atleast there shouldn’t have been anything holding it back. In the case of the Trump World Tower the rich and powerful neighbors found out about its scale after its construction already began and in vain tried to protect their views.

There was recently a proposal for a 70 something building on the Upper West Side that was killed by NIMBY's. Donald Trump provided a great precedent, I'm glad that Ratner is following this, he's reserving his media endorsements for the Nets Stadium, and I am hopeful it will work out for him in the end.

[CoolCzech]

NY Sun

Report: Arena Vulnerable to Terrorists

BY DANIEL HEMEL - Special to the Sun
July 22, 2005

The high-rise urban hub and professional basketball arena proposed for downtown Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards would be vulnerable to a devastating terrorist attack because of design flaws in architect Frank Gehry's plans for the site, according to a recent report co-authored by a Defense Department analyst that was released to The New York Sun.

The arena is at the heart of real estate mogul Bruce Ratner's bid for downtown Brooklyn's 8.5-acre rail yard, which is currently owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Ratner's firm, Forest City Ratner, commissioned Mr. Gehry, an acclaimed architect best known for his work on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, to design the arena and the surrounding high-rises.


************************************

The New York Sun

Vallone Introduces Bill Giving Police Veto Power Over Construction Projects

BY DANIEL HEMEL - Special to the Sun
July 22, 2005

A City Council member, Peter Vallone Jr., told The New York Sun yesterday that he will introduce legislation that will give the Police Department veto power over all proposals to construct buildings higher than seven stories in the five boroughs.

"At this day and age, the Police Department should be able to have a say in the construction of any major project," according to Mr. Vallone, a Democrat from Astoria.

***********************

Hmmm... can Gehry collabortate with Childs on a good fortified base for this new tower?:rolleyes:

[BayRidgeFever]

Buildings over seven stories? Omg, wtf? Is he serious? As if MSG couldn't be a target, or Yankee Stadium. Just an excuse not to build Atlantic Yards.

PROTEST AGAINST PETER VALLONE JR.

This is as bad as Giulian's proposal for contextual development. If that passed there'd be no 80 South, no 75 story Gehry tower, no Bank of America, etc.

This city pisses me off SO much some times.

[igzaklee]

maybe the nypd will force gehry to put another 20-storey pedestal into his tower??

and what are the "design flaws" that some defense analyst sitting in a cubicle in fairfax, va., is complaining about?

who are these jokers???

:(

[danger_doug]

^^Thank you Sun. A "devasatating terrorist attack" would by definition make any building or person it was subjected to vulnerable. Someone should tell the Sun it also would be vulnerable to a "modest terrorist attack," a "bumbling terrorist attack" an "ineffectual terrorist attack" a "made up terrorist attack" a "laser-guided-shark-driven terrorist attack" and a "jello attack" (terrorists don't use jello). Now stop sowing terror in the populace and go back to kissing Republican ass.

[STR]

who are these jokers???

http://us.ent4.yimg.com/tv.yahoo.com/tv/photos/62/79/527976.jpg

[NYguy]

NY Sun

Report: Arena Vulnerable to Terrorists
BY DANIEL HEMEL - Special to the Sun

Thank you for that special Daniel Hemel. Were it not for the fact that New York City itself could be vulnerable to terrorists, that would have been groundbreaking reporting.

Unfortunately, with the attacks in London, everyone now seems to be on triple-red alert. We will soon be forced to ride nude on the subways and buses. New York City itself will later be disbanded, and the residents shipped out to various locations in the midwest where, presumably, the terrorists won't find them.

[Lecom]

NY Sun

Report: Arena Vulnerable to Terrorists

BY DANIEL HEMEL - Special to the Sun
July 22, 2005

The high-rise urban hub and professional basketball arena proposed for downtown Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards would be vulnerable to a devastating terrorist attack because of design flaws in architect Frank Gehry's plans for the site, according to a recent report co-authored by a Defense Department analyst that was released to The New York Sun.

The arena is at the heart of real estate mogul Bruce Ratner's bid for downtown Brooklyn's 8.5-acre rail yard, which is currently owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Ratner's firm, Forest City Ratner, commissioned Mr. Gehry, an acclaimed architect best known for his work on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, to design the arena and the surrounding high-rises.


************************************

The New York Sun

Vallone Introduces Bill Giving Police Veto Power Over Construction Projects

BY DANIEL HEMEL - Special to the Sun
July 22, 2005

A City Council member, Peter Vallone Jr., told The New York Sun yesterday that he will introduce legislation that will give the Police Department veto power over all proposals to construct buildings higher than seven stories in the five boroughs.

"At this day and age, the Police Department should be able to have a say in the construction of any major project," according to Mr. Vallone, a Democrat from Astoria.

***********************

Hmmm... can Gehry collabortate with Childs on a good fortified base for this new tower?:rolleyes:
Oh sure, they'll have planes coming for all the thousands of buildings over seven stories in New York. Let's not build the buildings, so they got nothing to destroy. Why don't we also all shoot ourselves while we're at it, so the terrorists got no one to kill. Foolproof plan.

[Antares41]

I don't get this fear of build tall buildings out of fear of terrorist crashing planes into them, after all how tall is the Pentagon? What about 5-6 stories! and the terrorist had no trouble hitting it, ergo, all buildings regardless of height are vunerable.

[onewiseman]

Any news regarding the future of the Gehry tower? :???:

[Stu]

I don't get this fear of build tall buildings out of fear of terrorist crashing planes into them, after all how tall is the Pentagon? What about 5-6 stories! and the terrorist had no trouble hitting it, ergo, all buildings regardless of height are vunerable.

That's the way I see it. Unless the fear stems from being trapped on the upper floors.

[NYguy]

Any news regarding the future of the Gehry tower? :???:

Final design has not been released yet, construction to begin early next year (along with Freedom and Calatrava towers)

[STERNyc]

Any news regarding the future of the Gehry tower? :???:

Final design has not been released yet, construction to begin early next year (along with Freedom and Calatrava towers)

True we don't even know what this building will look like although it will rise before 80 South Street and the Freedom Tower.

[CoolCzech]

I don't get this fear of build tall buildings out of fear of terrorist crashing planes into them, after all how tall is the Pentagon? What about 5-6 stories! and the terrorist had no trouble hitting it, ergo, all buildings regardless of height are vunerable.

Yeah, but funny thing about people: in the event of a disaster, most of them would rather be on the 5th floor instead of the 110th.

[Antares41]

Yes! I know what your saying. The images of people falling from 86 floor up is much more horrifying than people fall from five floor although the final outcome will probably be no different.

[JMGarcia]

The fear is the amount of time it takes to evacuate from a persons desk. Obviously it takes a lot longer time to get out from the 90th floor than the 5th.

[NYguy]

True we don't even know what this building will look like although it will rise before 80 South Street and the Freedom Tower.

More or less they will all rise at the same time, similar to the NY Times and Bank of America towers. Sure the Times tower got an earlier start, but in the end they'll be going up at the same time, Downtown's 3 new stars.

[STERNyc]

According to this Beekman Place will be atleast 953 feet...

Downtown Express:

Adjustments made to East Side school project


A drop-off location will be available for children arriving to a new elementary school on Beekman Street, bringing a dispute over where the children would gather at the start and end of the school day to a close.

The pre-K-8 school will be built in a new 75-story Frank Gehry-designed tower adjacent to New York Downtown Hospital and parents will be able to drop off and pick up their children at a designated area on William St.

The 4-story, 98,000 sq. ft. school will be the first for the East Side neighborhood. Over the summer, Community Board 1 reviewed the designs for the school and was dismayed to see a schoolyard not included in the plans, although there is a rooftop garden play area for the 600 students. The hospital advocated against a courtyard gathering area for the children, fearing it might disrupt patients at their 25,000 sq. ft. hospital expansion, which will also be housed in the new tower.

The $65 million school, partially funded with $20 from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, is the most expensive school ever built by the Department of Education.

An agreement about the student drop-off location was reached through discussions with developer Bruce Ratner, hospital officials, Community Board 1 representatives and New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who helped broker the deal with Mayor Mike Bloomberg to fit the school into the residential tower in February.

“This is a win for us,” C.B. 1 chairperson Julie Menin told board members at a Nov. 15 meeting.

But she also warned of another fight still to come when construction begins in April.

Construction for the 1 million sq. ft. tower—the tallest Downtown after the planned 1,776-ft. tall Freedom Tower—will require pile driving, a noisy hammering excavation process. The tower adjoins two residential buildings at 140 and 150 Nassau St. and is directly opposite the hospital. South Bride Towers, a large residential development, is also nearby. Residents worry the noise will be excessive.

“Everybody says the worst part is pile driving and that can take a few months. Should I be out of my house for a few months?” Charis San Antonio Cooper, a 150 Nassau resident told Downtown Express in August. Cooper’s one-year-old son’s bedroom faces the tower site, which is currently a parking lot. “The only thing I’m honestly, truthfully worried about is the pile driving.”

“We really need to put up a good fight here and make sure the residents, hospital and businesses are protected,” said Menin, adding that additional discussions with Ratner and Silver will likely follow.

The community recently won a fight about pile driving at a Tribeca development near an existing elementary school. City Councilmember Alan Gerson secured a quieter excavation process before the project was approved by City Council. But unlike the Tribeca project, known as Site 5B, Ratner does not need city approval to begin construction.

— Ronda Kaysen

[Spooky873]

How tall is this one?

[STERNyc]

Read what I just posted. Its going to be taller than American International Group so atleast 952 feet.

[JACKinBeantown]

Well, AIG has a spire so they might mean roof height, which would be around 850 feet. Could be either way.

[Jularc]

I am glad to hear some news about this one. :)

[NYguy]

Construction for the 1 million sq. ft. tower—the tallest Downtown after the planned 1,776-ft. tall Freedom Tower—will require pile driving, a noisy hammering excavation process. The tower adjoins two residential buildings at 140 and 150 Nassau St. and is directly opposite the hospital. South Bride Towers, a large residential development, is also nearby. Residents worry the noise will be excessive.

“Everybody says the worst part is pile driving and that can take a few months. Should I be out of my house for a few months?” Charis San Antonio Cooper, a 150 Nassau resident told Downtown Express in August.

Well, if noise bothers you to the point you should leave, then yes. Be out of your house for a few months.


unlike the Tribeca project, known as Site 5B, Ratner does not need city approval to begin construction.

Sweet music to my ears...

[Fabb]

Well, AIG has a spire so they might mean roof height, which would be around 850 feet. Could be either way.

That's right.
This permanent ambiguity annoys me.

[EDDYC]

I doubt the reporter had any idea what the structural height would be, and was just going by the number of floors. 75 is more floors than anything currently exhisting downtown, but less than the Freedom Tower will have, hence the reporter's conclusion "2nd tallest building downtown after Freedom Tower." Above 950' would be great, but past history suggests that a 75 floor tower doesn't have to be that much above 800.'

[NYguy]

I doubt the reporter had any idea what the structural height would be, and was just going by the number of floors. 75 is more floors than anything currently exhisting downtown, but less than the Freedom Tower will have, hence the reporter's conclusion

I've thought of it that way as well, but the Beekman St tower has always been described as Downtown's second tallest - even when Freedom Tower had less than 75 floors. But that doesn't mean anything, because we don't know what gives the building its top height. Could be a spire, crown, or flat roof.

[NYguy]

NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Delirious New York
Our long architectural snooze is over, thanks to neomodernist mania and the arrival—finally—of Gehry. Brooklyn should embrace him.

By Kurt Andersen

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/columns/imperialcity/imperialcity051121_400.gif

Illustration by Nathan Fox


Back in the eighties and nineties, when I was writing a lot about architecture, I seldom wrote about New York City. Nearly all the most interesting work was being built in other places. We had our grand local stories of preservation and organic urban renewal, but the best new New York buildings of the late-twentieth century were essentially wishful conjurings of familiar early-twentieth-century architecture, very pleasant high-end comfort food. At a time when the prevailing local spirit was a bright, shiny, brittle, slightly crazed megalomania, a few well-made oases of restraint in mellow brick and stone were as good as it got.

That was then. Not only are those go-go demi-decades (1985–1990 and 1995–2000) history, but New York’s present post-9/11 mood (anxious? Sober? Grown up?) seems unready to let the bon temps rouler in the familiar coked-up bull-market dot-com fashion. In most ways, this is a quieter, less exciting time in the city.

However, new architecture—variously bright, shiny, brittle, show-offy, and slightly crazed but a lot of it significant and some of it even thrilling—is now happening in New York as it hasn’t since the Lever House–Seagram Building–Guggenheim Museum fifties. The most awesome of our prospective new buildings is Santiago Calatrava’s design for a 55-story steel-and-concrete skeleton, on the East River south of the Seaport, in which twelve separate glass townhouses for twelve extremely rich people will be stacked. The renderings look like a sixties architect’s unbuildable fever dream of the future, half a zipper 827 feet tall—but it might really get built. “Five years ago,” says Frank Sciame, the construction mogul and developer who hired Calatrava, “we would have done a conventional tower.”

The Zeitgeist works in mysterious, compensatory ways.

Indeed, the present era began pretty much exactly four years ago, in the wake of 9/11 and the completion of three fresh, dazzling jewel boxes by three local stars: Richard Meier’s Perry Street towers and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd. They were perfect proofs of the idea that small is beautiful—that there is a powerful inverse relationship between the bulk of a new building and its chances of being splendid. But the Meier buildings (along with Christian de Portzamparc’s convoluted crystalline tower for LVMH on 57th Street) were also a reminder that the big reason people turned against flat-topped steel-and-glass architecture in the eighties was that nearly all of it had been executed so badly and passionlessly during the sixties and seventies.

At this point, 80 years after Le Corbusier and Mies became stars and 40 years after the hegemonic heyday of their modernist apostles, Richard Meier’s buildings are in their way almost as nostalgic as brand-new stone-veneer-clad, Deco-topped buildings. It’s just that today’s most fashionable backward-looking fantasy happens to be Jetsons–meet–James Bond–in–Weimar metal-and-glass instead of old-fashioned limestone-and-marble—sexy Bobo nostalgia instead of the uptown premodern haute bourgeois kind.

But in any event, at the moment the World Trade Center was destroyed, a reinvigorated and more catholic modernism was becoming the cool, blue-chip style in New York. And the aftermath of 9/11 has reinforced the new approach. Every one of the superstar schemes for rebuilding ground zero was some flavor of hyperbolic futuristic modernism (extravagant geometry, exposed engineering, little or no exterior stone). The public’s appetite was whetted. Now ground has been broken for Calatrava’s extraordinary winged train station at the site—all white steel and glass but romantic and expressive in a way serious modernist buildings were not permitted to be back in the canonical day.

The station won’t open until 2009, but the burgeoning neomodernist renaissance is already visible all over the city. There’s Steven Holl’s ingeniously asymmetrical new structure connecting two nineteenth-century buildings at Pratt (where I happen to be a trustee). It’s a strong counterargument to the conventional wisdom that additions to old buildings must be antique simulacra, as is James Polshek’s new entrance to the Brooklyn Museum and Renzo Piano’s nearly finished addition to the Morgan Library. Even Sir Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, as kooky and Shanghai-ish as it looks in our skyline—a geodesic dome stretched into a high-rise—is striving to be singular in a way that big New York office towers have hardly done at all since 1960. And Piano’s new Times building—designed as a tall box with an intriguing double skin of clear glass and ceramic tubes—might achieve greatness in spite of its enormity.

In one small zone downtown, a modestly scaled hip modernist trifecta is arising. On Lafayette, Richard Gluckman has built a condo building with a glassy façade shaped like a dreamy wave; on the Bowery, the seven-story New Museum is going up, precisely designed by the Tokyo firm SANAA to look like a careless stack of seven silvery metal boxes; and on Mercer, a lithe, very glassy condo building by French superstar Jean Nouvel is under construction.

Then, gliding back uptown, the ultra-hip little firm Asymptote is making an apartment building out of a garage behind one of the Meier towers, John Pawson has converted part of the Gramercy Park Hotel into minimalist condos, and Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio will soon turn the High Line into one of the coolest city parks imaginable. Farther north and further out—2012, 2014—Meier envisions three mammoth apartment towers just south of the U.N., the impeccable Japanese modernist Fumihiko Maki is designing a new 35-story building for the U.N. itself, Piano will build his (glassy) addition to the Whitney . . . and so on.

But how can we be a city of glamorous cutting-edge architecture without finally getting our own Frank Gehry building or two or—hell, sure, why not—nineteen?

The first, under construction on the West Side Highway in Chelsea, is a nine-story headquarters for Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp. It’s a new Gehry iteration; instead of an exploded giant tin can, it will be boxier, more traditionally building-esque, with townhouse-size modules and wedding-cake setbacks wrapped in translucent textured glass. “We’re gonna do more things behind there, too,” Gehry says, suggesting a future Gehryfication of Tenth Avenue. “Housing and stuff.”

And next spring, construction should begin on the first Gehry skyscraper on the planet, a 74-story apartment tower (plus hospital and school) just south of the Brooklyn Bridge. Given the string of abortive New York projects he’s been through (like the doomed ground-zero theater center), he doesn’t want to publish his design for Beekman Tower “until they’re sure they’re going to build.”

But he showed me the renderings. For a Gehry building, it’s conservative, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—a classic Manhattan skyscraper with several setbacks. But for a Manhattan high-rise it’s radical, since it will likely be clad in titanium—creased and wrinkled as if it’s a few yards of draped fabric rather than a dozen acres of metal.


Bruce Ratner of Forest City is the developer, as he is of Piano’s Times building and of what will be a whole new Brooklyn downtown between Atlantic and Flatbush—a Nets arena plus a residential quarter as large as Rockefeller Center with sixteen buildings, all by Gehry. Freddy Ferrer called it “the twin brother of Bloomberg’s West Side stadium boondoggle,” but that’s wrong. The arena is the anchor of a thoroughly imagined project by an actual developer; basketball seasons have 41 home games instead of 8, thus generating more street life; and the architecture will be the work of a single-minded genius, not a big corporate firm. Simply because enormous redevelopment projects are often or even usually misguided (Robert Moses’s Lower Manhattan Expressway, the Jets’ stadium, Freedom Tower) doesn’t mean we ought to oppose them by default.

Westway, for instance, should have been built, and so, probably, should Gehry’s Atlantic Yards. The skewed, cartoony angles of the buildings, which range from 20 to 60 stories, would in one fell swoop create a second, sui generis Brooklyn skyline encompassing the familiar, phallic old Williamsburgh Bank Building. Gehry’s goal is for it to “look like it developed over time. Usually I would bring in other architects to make it look like a city, not like a development.” But many hands at the drawing table (or the CAD screen) is no guarantee of urban quality either: At Battery Park City the result has been, as Ratner says, “a mishmash of architecture.”

Thirty years ago, as the city entered a grotty, seemingly permanent twilight, Red Grooms and Rem Koolhaas produced their retorts to the gloom, the jolly walk-through installation Ruckus Manhattan and the alternative-urban-history book Delirious New York, respectively. Gehry’s scheme seeks to be a latter-day consummation of those visions. It could be magnificent. Of course, executed poorly—say, Battery Park City populated by Arquitectonica’s cheesy, strenuously fun Westin Hotel in Times Square—it could also be dreadful. Until now, most of Ratner’s buildings have ranged from the uninspired to the bad, like his shopping center across from the Atlantic Yards. Even he admits the Atlantic Center mall is “not up to snuff. Philip Johnson did a first design, but I made a decision not to use him. I have to blame myself. I’ve been talking for ten years about trying to use ‘design architects’ instead of ‘developer architects.’ ”

Why does he think New York was so bereft of exciting large-scale architecture for so long? “It’s something I ponder a lot,” he says. “So mediocre.” And most new buildings here are still mediocre or worse—we will have plenty of ’00s versions of sixties-white-brick monstrosities to dispirit us for the rest of our lives, including many (such as the condo high-rise going up at the west end of Chambers Street) trying to ride the neomodern bandwagon.

Given Ratner’s track record, I asked Gehry if at first he mistrusted Ratner’s professed new dedication to quality and innovation. “Yeah. Yes, I did.” And how did he get over his skepticism? “I’m still getting over it,” he says, although so far, “the budget busts have not been architectural ones. He’s always voted with me on the side of the architectural. He runs into roadblocks sometimes in his company, but it has not been cataclysmic.”

Ratner isn’t spending 15 percent extra on these new buildings simply because he wants to underwrite cool design. He understands that in Brooklyn, just as his quotas of apartments for poor people and construction jobs for women and minorities were ways of winning over key constituencies, hiring Gehry was politics by other means, sure to please the city’s BAM-loving chattering class. “The spirit of what you say,” Ratner agrees when I posit this theory, “is accurate.”

There will be many more political hoops to jump through, and what Gehry calls his “lefty do-gooder” side is under challenge. “Citizens’ groups all over the world are backfiring on good architecture. They should back off when somebody knows what they’re doing.” One of his daughters lives in Carroll Gardens, a mile from the site, and she, he says with a chuckle, “is probably one of those out protesting.”

It’s a state-supervised project, so the City Planning Commission has the power only to recommend changes, not command them. Yet when Gehry spoke with me one recent Saturday, he’d just hung up with Amanda Burden, the planning chair, and was a little exasperated by her bluestocking micromanagement: “She wants retail on every inch, and she’s talking about how the doors open . . . ” While I appreciated his irritation, it also made me think Burden is doing her job. Such is the to and fro of the process.

Meanwhile, he’s had a hand in another Brooklyn project, the clear-glass-fronted Elizabethan theater to be built across from bam. It’s due to open in 2008, as is its neighbor, a library designed as a flying V (in transparent glass) by neomodernist Enrique Norten, who is talented and hot and, at 51, young in celebrity-architect years.

Gehry is 76, Frank Lloyd Wright’s age when he got the Guggenheim job. Like Wright (like most architects), Gehry is not exactly fulsome with praise for his peers. When I asked which new New York buildings he liked, he laughed. “I guess I like the Meier buildings. I like the simplicity of [Cesar] Pelli’s towers”—such as the handsome and, yes, very glassy new Bloomberg L.P. headquarters at 59th and Lex. “I used him as a model for Beekman, his way of handling tall buildings; he doesn’t get it fussy.” Like Wright, Gehry is an out-of-towner, a brilliant eccentric, but also, improbably, the great brand-name architect of his time. If Atlantic Yards is completed on schedule, in 2016, he will still be four years younger than Wright was when Wright watched the Guggenheim—his first New York City commission and final masterpiece—being finished.

[Antares41]

^Titanium cladding(?) thats got to be a first! Also, must be very expensive. However since titanium is relatively corrosion resistance building should really sparkle in the sunlight for some time. I am anxious to see the final rendering.

[Fabb]

he doesn’t want to publish his design for Beekman Tower “until they’re sure they’re going to build.”

That means they're still not sure.
Please, make up your mind !

[FRED]

Interesting !!

[STERNyc]

From what I read it I think it will be a taller, more dramatic and ethereal, Bloomgerg Tower.

Also....

And next spring, construction should begin on the first Gehry skyscraper on the planet, a 74-story apartment tower (plus hospital and school) just south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

There have been reports that the building would rise as high as 85 storeys, here it mentions a hospital and a school topped by a 74 storey apartment tower.

Lastly I think its very smart that Ratner and Gehry are keeping this project low-profile, so that the NIMBY's don't kill this one like these seem to kill or alter every other tall building proposal.

[Fabb]

Lastly I think its very smart that Ratner and Gehry are keeping this project low-profile, so that the NIMBY's don't kill this one like these seem to kill or alter every other tall building proposal.

That could work.
They'll be so shocked that they won't be able to react, is that it ?

[STERNyc]

Lastly I think its very smart that Ratner and Gehry are keeping this project low-profile, so that the NIMBY's don't kill this one like these seem to kill or alter every other tall building proposal.

That could work.
They'll be so shocked that they won't be able to react, is that it ?

Its the same thing that happened with the Trump World Tower. Maybe some other people remember differently, but I, like the nimby's in the neighborhood didn't even know the scope and size of the project until it was already underconstruction.