Quote:
Originally Posted by x3nophon
Looking at the pictures I can only imagine what could have been. We got a bunch of glassy, modernist skyscrapers which could belong in any city in the world. There is nothing New York about them. If this site had chosen a design that reflected New York's unique skyscraper heritage it could have been defining for the city. Masonry clad; setbacks; spires; Beaux-Arts, Neo-Classical, or Art Deco inspired; ornamentation, actual architecture; etc. Might as well be some office park outside of Shanghai. Nobody's ever going go look at a shot of Hudson Yards and say, "That's New York City right there."
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This complex was not birthed out of any particular bullshit, idealized nostalgia over what NYC represents to
anyone, particularly the painfully clueless NIMBYs who
live there.
It came to be primarily as a result of its leadership trying to pull their own heads out of their mid-20th century asses and come to grips with the obnoxious economic, demographic and social realities that were keeping the Big Apple from keeping pace with
now.
It's also why we have MidTown East, the superboom of highrises in BKN and LIC...and, on the downside, the chronic affordable housing shortage that Phase Two of this complex--among other areas--will seek to address
(see above).
New York is growing like never before; and it ain't gonna take time out thinking about how to do it by pandering to misbegotten stereotypes. This great city is beholden to
no one who lives outside of it in projecting some kind of phony "official image".
I mean, why do you think the Yankees have no team mascot?