NEW YORK | New East River access

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Muskavon

That "decrepit waterfront sprawl of warehouses and abandoned factories" gave the people who came before you an ability to make the "urban" existence you find so wonderful. Granted the property use for such in Queens has long since past. Pretty much all of that money you are now sending to China. And maybe the fact our wealth is being sent overseas at rapid rates explains some of the reasons Queens hasn't been developed into an urban mecca sooner. Who can afford to deal with it? Maybe the Chinese will do you better. But don't let them fool you into thinking all those old factories aren't now sprawled across their country pouring pollution everywhere unchecked and unnoticed with zero environmental concerns to contend with. You are living in a dream in NYC. It's a fake world. the world that provides your consumption exists outside your borders. Clean up NYC and surrounding all you want. You'll still demand a dark, dreary factory somewhere out of sight and out of mind affordably produce your needs tomorrow.

Well, OK then. I pretty much agree with a lot of your statements. However this really isn't the place for that particular discussion. But true, there was a time when almost anything was made in New York, it was a factory town. Times have changed, and the city has to change with it. Back in the 90's there was a proposal to allow "big box" stores to open up in some of those unused, large spaces. Of course, the city council being what it is, killed that idea. But the lack of open spaces is what ultimately drives the city to breathe new life and uses into old spaces. Large parts of that particular area of Queens were not even zoned for residential until a few years ago. Now, as the city changes, a new and vibrant skyline rises on the Queens side of the east river, just as it does in Brooklyn. I remember how quickly the Jersey City skyline changed. Where there was literally nothing before now stands the state's tallest building. I expect similar transformations along the east river shore.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYguy

http://www.nycedc.com/PressRoom/Pres...Images.aspx#22

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...rk_real_estate
Hunters Point Contest Narrows to 3 .

November 26, 2010
By ELIOT BROWN

The Bloomberg administration has zeroed in on three finalists vying to develop a major housing complex on the Queens waterfront envisioned as a bastion of middle-class housing.

Narrowed from a field of seven, the short list includes Douglaston Development; a team led by TF Cornerstone; and a joint venture of Related Cos., Phipps Houses and Monadnock Construction, according to people familiar with the bidding process. A spokesman for the city's housing agency declined to comment.

The 1,000-apartment project, known as Hunters Point South, would sit across the East River from the United Nations on city-owned land near Long Island City. It would be the first phase of a far larger complex totaling more than 5,000 apartments, built alongside new parkland. The current bid is for two towers at the north end of the 30-acre site.

Planned for more than four years, the development has been positioned as something of a Stuyvesant Town of the 21st century. City officials want to restrict at least 60% of the apartments to middle-income tenants making between $63,000 and $130,000 for a family of four.

With a city subsidy of as much as $90,000 being offered to the developer for each restricted-income apartment built, the project attracted considerable interest from the development world. The bidders included the Durst Organization, AvalonBay, and the Richman Group, all of which were passed over when the city narrowed the field.

Each of the three remaining bidders has years of experience in mixed-income developments. They declined to discuss the financial components of their bids.

Jon McMillan, director of planning at TF Cornerstone, says the company plans to build both towers together. It intends to partner with Settlement Housing Fund, which would own and rent out family-focused units aimed at middle-income tenants, and with Asian Americans for Equality, which would target seniors. "We think we found a way to meet all the city's objectives while minimizing the cost to the city," he says.

The Related-Phipps-Monadnock project would be managed by Related and Phipps, says Adam Weinstein, president of Phipps, with the buildings designed by architecture firms SHoP and Ismael Leyva Architects.

Jeffrey Levine, chief executive of Douglaston, says he is "very excited about the opportunity" of Hunters Point South but declined to discuss details of his bid.

City housing officials expect to make a final selection by early 2011.

[NYC4Life]

Whoever is eventually selected to be the developer, a much needed improvement will come to an other wise, industrial wasteland. A similar proposal should be in the works for the Bronx.

[Obey]

I want to mention on Curbed there was an article with renderings of the Northside Piers. Not sure if it is apart of this.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Obey

I want to mention on Curbed there was an article with renderings of the Northside Piers. Not sure if it is apart of this.

Was just about to post this. It's part of a Brooklyn development that's partially built.


http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/0..._next_boom.php
What Northside Piers Will Look Like After the Next Boom



Wednesday, January 5, 2011, by Joey Arak

We could've sworn that these renderings of a fully realized Northside Piers complex—all three towers planned by Toll Brothers on the Williamsburg waterfront, not just the two that have been built—are a few years old. You know, from back before the credit crunch put 3 Northside Piers, the one closest to the water (gotta sell the rest before the views are gone!), on ice for the foreseeable future.

But a tipster tells us that in the past, 3 Northside Piers has been represented in renderings by "a clear box with similar proportions to the other two towers," and a quick search of the Curbed archive seems to back up that claim. Did the Men in Black mess with our memory?

The Williamsburg waterfront of the future! (Results not guaranteed.)
The third tower is also nowhere to be seen on the Northside Piers website, but architecture firm FXFowle isn't keeping the secret. The firm offers a few glimpses of the triplets on its own website, while omitting that other waterfront colossus, the Edge. Note the size of the unbuilt NP tower, which looks like it has a few floors on its closest neighbors. When will the trio be complete? When the economy, demand, and this guy say so.

[Dac150]

Well it looks like the new boom will bring with it some exciting development all across the city; I’m particularly excited about this though because I like to see the city taking advantage of its priceless waterfront. A good trend has begun on the East River with this kind of development, and you like to see, when the opportunity presents itself, for it to continue strong.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/ar...er=rss&emc=rss
Civic Engagement Trumps ‘Shhh!’


Queens Library at Hunters Point: A model of this new branch, designed by Steven Holl and Chris McVoy.



A rendering of the Hunters Point library in Queens as seen from East 42nd Street in Manhattan.


By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
January 30, 2011

There may be no better example of the worrying state of American architecture than the career of Steven Holl.

At 63, this New York architect is widely considered one of the most original talents of his era. His work has influenced a generation of architects and students. And over the last decade or so he has become a star in faraway places like Scandinavia and China, where he is celebrated as someone able to imbue even the most colossal urban projects with lyricism.

Yet his career at home has been negligible. He has had only a handful of notable commissions in the United States, and his output in New York is embarrassingly slight: a modest addition to Pratt Institute’s school of architecture, a cramped (if underrated) gallery at the edge of Little Italy and a handful of interior renovations.

So when the Queens Library Board of Trustees approved the design of the new Hunters Point community library this month, it was a well-deserved and long overdue breakthrough. The project, done in collaboration with Mr. Holl’s partner Chris McVoy and scheduled to begin construction early next year, will stand on a prominent waterfront site just across the East River from the United Nations. It is a striking expression of the continuing effort to shake the dust off of the city’s aging libraries and recast them as lively communal hubs, and should go far in bolstering the civic image of Queens.

The building’s beguiling appearance — with giant free-form windows carved out of an 80-foot-tall rectangular facade of rough aluminum — should make it an instantly recognizable landmark. Seen from Manhattan, it will have a haunting presence on the waterfront, flanked by the red neon Pepsi-Cola sign to the north and the remnants of an abandoned ferry terminal to the south. At dusk the library’s odd-shaped windows will emit an eerie glow, looking a bit like ghosts trapped inside a machine. And late at night, when the building is dark, spotlights will illuminate its pockmarked facade and the windows will resemble caves dug into the wall of a cliff.

Only at the site itself, however, will the optimism driving Mr. Holl’s design come into focus. The library will stand at the western edge of Queens West, a soulless mix of generic apartment towers and barren streets built up in the last decade or so that has neither the dilapidated charm of the old manufacturing neighborhoods to the east nor the density of a real urban neighborhood. (The development’s one saving grace is a narrow park that snakes along the riverfront; its steel gantries, once used for loading boats, are an ode to the area’s industrial past.)

Mr. Holl ’s design is not about escaping this world but transforming it into something more poetic. Approaching from the towers across the street, visitors will enter a tranquil reading garden, a little paradise walled off from the gloomy scene that surrounds it. Ginkgo trees will shade the garden, partly blocking the view of the towers. As visitors move closer to the library, they will be able to see through the lobby windows and out over a reflecting pool and the riverfront park. Other odd-shaped windows will allow diagonal glimpses up through the building and out to the sky.

When I first saw a rendering of this facade it brought to mind Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1975 “Day’s End,” in which Matta-Clark used a power saw to carve big circular openings into the exterior of an abandoned industrial building on the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan. In both works the overscaled cut-out openings are powerfully metaphorical. They suggest the desire to expose private, interior worlds to public scrutiny, and — by seeming to undermine the buildings’ structural stability — they evoke an unstable, ever-changing world.

But Mr. Holl’s design is also a statement about the individual’s place in a larger communal framework. The lobby is a towering space framed on both sides by several big, balconylike reading rooms. To get to them visitors climb a staircase that runs up the lobby’s back wall and past one of the huge free-form windows that afford views of the East River and Manhattan. The stairs lead first to the main reading room, which overlooks the lobby, then cross back to a children’s area or continue up to another reading room for teenagers. Eventually they emerge onto a rooftop terrace, where during nice weather people will be able to attend lectures and performances, or , when nothing is going on, lounge around and enjoy the spectacular view.

The strength of this layout is that it allows Mr. Holl to balance the reader’s need for solitude with a strong sense of community. The main reading room, cantilevering out over the lobby, is the most open. The children’s reading room, the noisiest, is enclosed behind a curved wall with a few small windows cut into it so that kids can look across to the adults or up to the teenagers.

But it is the constant reminders of the larger world provided by the giant cuts through the building’s surface that give the design so much resonance. Mr. Holl is not interested in creating a monastic sanctuary; he wants to build a monument to civic engagement. The views aren’t just pretty; they remind us that the intellectual exchange of a library is part of a bigger collective enterprise. It’s a lovely idea, and touching in its old-fashioned optimism.

[Inkoumori]

^it's about time! Holl on the East River will be great.

[Obey]

Me likey

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

wow thats amazing!!!!

[pico44]

I think Steven Holl is the best American architect alive right now. It is pathetic how little work he has in his hometown. Hopefully this commission will spur further work in New York.

[JSsocal]

Hunters Point Today

My photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34734039@N04/

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Ferries to Ply East River Far More Regularly Soon



By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
February 1, 2011

For all their dominance on Staten Island, ferries have long struggled to muscle their way into the city’s mass transit mainstream. Experiments in Queens and Brooklyn have been held back by infrequent service, outsize operating costs and low ridership.

But the city, unfazed by past failures, is now embarking on a more ambitious plan: a year-round ferry network that will provide all-day service in the East River, starting in June.

Under the plan, to be announced on Wednesday, ferries will travel along a seven-stop route that stretches from Long Island City, Queens, to the Fulton Ferry landing by the Brooklyn Bridge, and includes Manhattan terminals at Pier 11 in the financial district and East 34th Street. During peak hours, boats will arrive at each stop every 20 minutes and travel in both directions.

The service is an attempt by the Bloomberg administration and the City Council to create a robust and viable mass transit alternative for a growing waterfront population that has struggled with clogged subway lines and bus routes that have been truncated or eliminated altogether.

“If we want every part of Brooklyn, every part of Queens, to be as attractive to businesses and residents as Midtown Manhattan is,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, “we have to make it as easy as possible to get to and from in an orderly, affordable fashion. That is what ferries can do.”

The program comes with $9 million in guaranteed city money and a commitment to maintain the service for three years. The board of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which will oversee the service, is expected to award a contract to BillyBey, a division of New York Waterway, in a vote on Wednesday.

There is an existing East River ferry service, run by New York Water Taxi, but it makes only a handful of runs each day, during the morning and afternoon rush.

The new network will offer two additional stops in Brooklyn, at India Street in Greenpoint and at North Sixth Street in Williamsburg, and the boats will travel far more frequently, running from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. In the summer, ferries will also stop at a pier near Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and, on Fridays, make a run to Governors Island.

A spokeswoman for New York Water Taxi, which had also bid for the contract, said the company had not decided whether it would continue its current service along the route.

City officials said they were hopeful that the expanded route — and subsidized fares, as low as $3 a ride — would foster a commuting culture, in which waterfront residents integrate the ferries into their daily routines. The boats are to arrive at each stop every 20 minutes during the morning and afternoon rush times, and every half-hour at off-peak hours in the summer. In the winter, the off-peak frequency would be reduced to every hour.

“Consistent and dependable service will be a magnet for potential users,” Robert K. Steel, the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, said in an interview in the fall. “Development has occurred along this corridor. You’ve got more people who would potentially find the service attractive.”

Passengers will pay $3 or $5.50 a ride; the route has two price zones, with the northern part of Williamsburg as the dividing line.

Bicycles will be allowed onboard, and at rush hours, a free bus service will pick up passengers at the 34th Street pier and make stops along the Midtown office corridor.

“It’s an opportunity for anybody who lives in the area on an overcrowded bus, or an overcrowded subway line,” Ms. Quinn said. “It isn’t just for waterfront dwellers; it’s for people in a radius around the waterfront.”

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/re...06posting.html

A Developer Aims High in Long Island City


[size=1]A rendering of TF Cornerstone’s East Coast project.



46-15 Center Boulevard is to be completed in 2012.

By ALISON GREGOR
February 4, 2011

EVEN in a sluggish market, property developers are continuing to bet on Long Island City’s transformation from towering smokestacks to residential towers.

Last August TF Cornerstone, one of the city’s most prolific builders, broke ground on a 41-story tower at 46-15 Center Boulevard that is to have 367 rental apartments when finished in April 2012. In December at 45-40 Center, the developer poured the foundation for a 32-story high-rise that will have 345 rental apartments, and in March it will begin a third tower, at 45-45 Center, with 806 rentals.

By 2013, along with those three towers, TF Cornerstone plans to have finished a fourth, with 586 apartments, at 46-10 Center, directly behind the huge Pepsi sign on the East River waterfront.

K. Thomas Elghanayan, the chairman of TF Cornerstone, said he wasn’t worried about going ahead with high-rise buildings in a city development market that remains largely stagnant.

“We know the market there,” Mr. Elghanayan said. “We’re able to get the financing, and no one else is building. I believe by the time we finish these four buildings, the whole community will be an established market, and we’ll do well.”

Long Island City’s formerly industrial waterfront, only a subway stop away from Manhattan, was designated by the city and state for cleanup and redevelopment in the early 1980s. A plan was adopted to create roads and infrastructure on 74 waterfront acres to support 11 residential towers, two schools, a park, and a library designed by the architect Steven Holl and his partner Chris McVoy.

The Queens West Development Corporation, a government agency, has been working with private developers, who lease the land they build upon, to achieve that plan.

There are now seven apartment towers in the area. Neighborhood amenities include parking garages, a new Duane Reade store and a supermarket called Food Cellar. A spa, a wine shop and more restaurants are opening or are planned. Vernon Boulevard is a thriving commercial strip with a new health food store and restaurants like Madera Cuban Grill and Steakhouse and Testaccio Ristorante.

The existing towers, the oldest of which is Citylights, built in 1997, have a total of about 2,600 apartments (not including a building with senior housing). The four new glass buildings — which, with two of the existing buildings, are part of what TF Cornerstone calls East Coast — will add about 2,100 apartments. New York City also has a plan to develop 5,000 apartments, about 60 percent of them for middle-income residents, on 30 of the 74 acres immediately to the south at Hunters Point South. TF Cornerstone has submitted a plan to participate in that development as well.

One-bedroom rentals in Long Island City’s waterfront area start at $2,000 a month, while two-bedrooms start at $2,400 to $2,500 a month, said Silvette Julian, a vice president and project director with the brokerage Nest Seekers International. Landlords in the area said they were optimistic that demand for apartments would continue, especially among renters priced out of Manhattan. Over the last decade, AvalonBay Communities built two rental towers, Avalon Riverview and Avalon Riverview North, and both have rented easily, said Frederick S. Harris, a senior vice president of AvalonBay.

“There hasn’t been a lot of competitive price pressure,” he said, meaning the company has not had to reduce rents.

A year ago, TF Cornerstone began testing the sales waters with condominiums at the View, a glass-clad terraced building that looks a bit like an Incan pyramid, at 46-30 Center Boulevard. The 185-unit building is more than half sold, with prices at $800 to $1,000 a square foot, Mr. Elghanayan said.

Among available units in mid-January, a one-bedroom was listed for $616,000; a two-bedroom for $840,000; and a three-bedroom for $995,000. Common charges on those units ranged from $546 to $981 a month.

Mr. Elghanayan said the View had mostly larger apartments, even some four-bedrooms, because the developers believe Long Island City’s waterfront is evolving into an attractive neighborhood for families.

A 662-seat school for kindergarten through eighth grade will be built by the New York City School Construction Authority adjacent to the rental building going up at 46-15 Center. The area already has one small school, Public School 78Q, for kindergarten through fifth grade.

The 10-acre Gantry Plaza State Park is being expanded, and the library design was recently approved by the Queens Library Board of Trustees.

Each building in the East Coast development has its own fitness room and amenities, but the 806-unit building will have a 1,000-car parking garage, along with an amenity center for all residents of East Coast buildings. On top of the parking garage will be a recreational area with a pool, tennis courts, beach volleyball courts and other outdoor amenities.

The recreational area will also have a large gym for which East Coast residents will pay a nominal membership fee to join, Mr. Elghanayan said. Those amenities should be available in early 2013.

“A lot of people don’t even know this development is here yet,” he said. “They have a vague idea of a Pepsi sign and seeing it as they cross the Queensboro Bridge. But once you get out here, it’s pretty spectacular.”

[SkyscrapersOfNewYork]

that looks pretty awesome,i gotta say TF Cornerstone always delivers

[NYguy]

Meanwhile, the City released more renderings for Hunter's Point South...

nycmayorsoffice

[Obey]

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/0...ero_energy.php

In 20 Years, the East River Waterfront Might Have Zero Energy

Most discussion so far of the city's plan for 2030 has leaned toward the fanciful, with, for example, a set of big-name architects' visions for the city two decades hence. Turns out the reality leans toward the fanciful, too! One aspect of the plan is the construction of the city's first carbon neutral building on the East River at 23rd Street, and now DNAinfo has the first renderings we've seen of it. Solar 2, the 8,000-square-foot building, will have a hydroponic greenhouse, cafe, and solar-powered offices—at least in theory. But it will cost $12.5 million to construct, and so far Solar One, the non-profit behind the project, only has $6.5 million. Hey, as Red Hook has taught us, life's tough with zero energy.
While we wait for the money to come in, the view of Solar 2 from the East River:

[Roadcruiser1]

How about using the East River for energy itself. I read the current in the river is extremely strong. If it's strong enough it can turn some turbines down under the river surface.

[BStyles]

As great as that sounds, I wouldn't want to tamper with the river current in any way. Not to mention the amount of subway tunnels running underneath the riverbed, and the aquatic life the turbines would have disastrous effects on.

The World Trace Center's chiller plant had to be capsized because of the concerns of the dangers it would pose to fish in the Hudson. God knows how many obstacles they'd hit in the East.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by BStyles

As great as that sounds, I wouldn't want to tamper with the river current in any way. Not to mention the amount of subway tunnels running underneath the riverbed, and the aquatic life the turbines would have disastrous effects on.

The World Trace Center's chiller plant had to be capsized because of the concerns of the dangers it would pose to fish in the Hudson. God knows how many obstacles they'd hit in the East.

The turbines move at a very slow speed (like a ceiling fan on low). It's not enough to harm aquatic life, although it might shake them up a bit. The turbines also create a low-level EM field, but testing has shown that this has no significant effect on fish.