Blimey! Where is this building in Manhattan?

It looks like a game of Jenga.

IIRC, it's in the financial district. I was just there and saw it and immediately said "it's a Jenga building!"

near wall street. bloomberg, ghoulani and 9/11 destroyed nyc

Blimey?

It’s in TriBeCa and called 56 Leonard.

The units are obscenely expensive, with 450 square foot studios selling for $1.4MM.

It’s the most prestigious building in TriBeCa right now.

Almost as bad as the Norman Foster building on W57. Anyone know which one I'm talking about?

That very very tall narrow one, R7?

It looks a different sort of ugly from different angles.

It looks like it wasn’t “put together” right (if you know what I mean).

I can't believe they're building high rises in Tri-fucking-beca.

Makes me nauseous just looking ay various googlepix just now. The higher ups (literally and figuratively) "floating' on high in glass boxes - ewww no! Square footage in Mabhattan if you had those kinds of funds and means, post 9/11 too, I'd be after sonething MUCH more grounded- in every sense of that!

I love it.

I see it every day and it makes me sick.

[quote]"It’s in TriBeCa and called 56 Leonard."

They keep trying to push that but everybody calls it the Jenga Tower and it will forever be known as the Jenga Tower

It looks fun and modern.

The building I really hate is the One World Trade Center, no passion, no real design. Given the important of the Twin Towers you would think something amazing like the London Shard would have been put up, but no, they do that embarrassing OWTC.

Looks like the set of Ready Player One.

I don't care for the building. Tribeca is boring as fuck.

I hate the one WTC building as well.

Ugly and poorly designed building. 💩

Buildings seem human to me. i often imagine them with a heart beat.

I like a view - but this like is being on a plane.

Just another shithole for evildoers to park their ill gotten gains.

I wouldn't be comfortable in it. Plus what R22 said.

Well then R20, what's your take on Our Lady Jenga then? That she's an ice cold heartless bitch? She looks that way to me.

Isn’t there another odd-looking building in Chelsea?

Some of you would prefer it if it had columns. And shutters.

And lovely window boxes R26!

What r22 said. These buildings are basically giant money-laundering schemes for foreign assholes.

I can't wait to get out of NYC. They're putting up these shitty towers everywhere like this is Sim City 4K or something, even in the outer boroughs.

They are really going to destroy cities in a lot of ways.

It looks like glass shipping containers and double-wide trailers stacked haphazardly.

Maybe it's because I am terrified of heights, but I am queasy just looking at the building. How can this architectual desgign be safe in a storm or an eartthquake?

Sorry, architectural design

I like that is doesn't look like rectangular box.

But people are right: This is just a vehicle for laundering money.

All these high rises are being built so they can be sold at exorbitant prices to wealthy foreigners who need to park their dirty money somewhere.

The monorails can't be far behind.. The city can't withstand any more street traffic.

Jenga Tower!

A hurricane will take that out.

There is no way they calculated the wind loads properly.

Probably a millennial forgot to add three 000's.

It looks Chinese.

R12, the word you want is “nauseated.”

The word “nauseous” means “causing nausea in others.”

This is what happens when improv hits architecture.

So we know Russians are laundering money buying overpriced boxes. When will the Chinese connection come to light? Will trump be involved too?

R16 "Passion" is not a desirable characteristic for an engineer building.

Those women who did that Florida bridge claimed to be "Passionate".

How many Americans live there?

[quote]They are really going to destroy cities in a lot of ways.

It's already happening. I've been riding my bike in and around Brooklyn recently and was shocked by what I saw. What's happening here would make you cry. Quaint neighborhoods with two and three story turn of the century row houses and town houses are being torn down and having ugly modernist glass boxes being put up in their place. Imagine a long tree-lined street with nothing but two story brick houses and then a super tall eyesore smacked right in the middle of them. The developers plop these eyesores this way on purpose, to disrupt the character of the neighborhood so that residents no longer feel welcome and more and start moving out.

I was so disgusted and upset by all of this that I just gave up on NYC. I used to be a gentrification fighter, now I'm like, "Fuck you." Once East Flatbush and Midwood started going, that's when I was done. These developers are the biggest assholes, but hey, if they want to pave NYC over and turn it into one big gigantic outdoor mall where it's nothing but glass towers and shitty chain stores, more power to them. Turn a once quirky, energetic, artistic city into another Dubai or Morocco, then watch NYC fall in status as one of the major centers of art, music and fashion.

I just went to NYC as a tourist for the first time and although I greatly enjoyed all it has to offer in the way of world-class museums and outdoor sculptures, I was amazed by how many chains are EVERYWHERE! It was sad to see a Starfucks on every damn corner in Manhattan.

It looks like a vertical trailer park.

[quote]The building I really hate is the One World Trade Center, no passion, no real design.

I don't like it in pictures, but in person it's actually OK, especially when it reflects the sky. At certain hour it blends in nicely.

[quote]Quaint neighborhoods with two and three story turn of the century row houses and town houses are being torn down and having ugly modernist glass boxes being put up in their place.

I'm hoping that this fad of glass residential buildings will die soon. Most of them have zero character and look dated just after a few years.

It's symbolic of the new ugliness which has taken over NYC.

We left 4 years ago after almost 4 decades living in NYC. We won't be back.

My humblest apologies, R48. We've been fighting the good fight against chains for over a decade. But the reason why we've been losing the battle is that greedy developers drove up the rents so high that only chain stores can avoid to move in now. As a result, we've lost so many established indie stores over the past 10 years. We even almost lost FAO Schwarz (which, after closing two years ago, is returning).

Aside from the skyrocketing rent, part of the problem, too, are the transplants. Back in the day, transplants used to want to come here for the NYC experience. They loved the local stores and the hallowed institutions. But the newest waves aren't like that. They look down on NYC indies as trashy and plebeian, and are all about branding, trendiness and the corporate experience.

That's why you see so many Starbucks now. All of our coffee vendors and indie coffee shops used to be indie. We had so many of indies that they made a coffee cup famous (see link) because you used to see everyone in NYC carrying them around. Do you see anyone with these cups anymore? No. Because many of the indies died out. The new transplants have been rejecting them in droves; they would rather sit in a sterile, fluorescent-lit environment drinking overpriced "branded" coffee than patronize a place that has character and gives you coffee in a ubiquitous cup that everyone else is carrying.

[quote]We had so many of indies that they made a coffee cup famous (see link) because you used to see everyone in NYC carrying them around. Do you see anyone with these cups anymore?

Remember the I Love NY ones?

I saw a ceramic version of r53.

Considered buying it.

[quote]Quaint neighborhoods with two and three story turn of the century row houses and town houses are being torn down and having ugly modernist glass boxes being put up in their place. Imagine a long tree-lined street with nothing but two story brick houses and then a super tall eyesore smacked right in the middle of them

Saw something similar happen in Vancouver, BC. It is nothing like it was decades ago.

[quote]Turn a once quirky, energetic, artistic city into another Dubai or Morocco, then watch NYC fall in status as one of the major centers of art, music and fashion.

Yes. That is what is happening. It is depressing. The new transplants like it.

R55 where did you see that?

I MUST buy that.

I think it was at the MoMA gift shop or something, but here’s one on Amazon.

^^^Thank you!! That’s awesome!

I had to seek out a non-chain cup of coffee in mid-town Manhattan. It was strange and more than a bit sad.

...[R48] so sorry that we New Yorkers are living our lives in our city. Maybe try Colonial Willamsburg (its in Virginia, not Brooklyn)

[R16], by any chance is your apt rent stabilized and can I have it when you go?

'indy coffee shops"? You folks are delusional. The cup design is great but the cups were famous not for the quality of the coffee but for their ubiquitous usage. Streetside carts, bodegas and cheap coffee shops (in the New York sense of diners). The quality of the coffee itself? Hit-or-miss at best.

1 WTC is, unintentionally, a perfect tribute to the mediocre architecture of the original World Trade Center.

. The Jenga building is the view outside my office window. I could never imagine living in something that seems so precarious but there are times of the day where it is stunning as the light hits it at different angles

Be Best!

I think it fails because it doesn’t go far enough. Pretty ordinary box most of the way up with the Jenga effect limited to the top floors. Should Jenga all the way, I say.

Archirects (Herzog & de Meuron) have won the Pritzker Prize.

i like it.

[quote]You folks are delusional. The cup design is great but the cups were famous not for the quality of the coffee but for their ubiquitous usage. Streetside carts, bodegas and cheap coffee shops (in the New York sense of diners).

Huh? That was literally my point earlier--that indie coffee shops were so widespread in NYC at some point that all you saw were people drinking from those cups, as opposed to now, where there are practically no indies left but all we have are crappy, overpriced Starbucks chains everywhere.

Is there something wrong with you?

If you bother to click on OP's pic and then click on it again it blows up big. The street seems very dark, even in the day.

and one thing that takes me aback when I see videos and pics of NYC, is how CLEAN it is now!

I went back to NYC circa '96, having left in '88 and even then I saw how many of the nice old places I'd known since I was a kid had gone.

[quote]where there are practically no indies left but all we have are crappy, overpriced Starbucks chains everywhere.

even in '96 there were three Starbucks on Astor Place. You could stand in front of one and see two others.

This has been going on for a very long time.

Starbucks is terrible coffee.

R51 It's symbolic of the new ugliness which has taken over Western Culture.

Post Modern = Satirical, Instability, Amoral, Nihilistic.

Another interesting view. I quite like it.

Most of the floors have only 1 or 2 apartments. 60 floors, only 145 units.

Cool!

$53 million.

Whitn the last 12-15 years, thanks mostly to Bloomberg's rezoning, there has been a shitload of horrific office building and luxury residential towers that have destroyed the sensibility and the aesthetics of the NYC skyline. As a lifelong New Yorker I was proud of how the city looked, and now I'm embarassed.

Modern architecture, like modern fashion, is nothing now but gimmicks. No taste, no craft. But this has been going on for several decades now. No craft, just gimmicks.

R69, yes, and appropriately, I suppose it has been given something called "Pritzker Prize"

There was a good DL thread about the ugly ego-stunt architecture that doesn't attempt to fit into its surroundings.

This is happening in many cities, R74. It's globalismarchitecture. No borders. Nations, cities, local and national culture must be destroyed.

[quote]This has been going on for a very long time.

Yes, I know but it wasn't as bad then as it is now. Back in the day, those Starbucks were always concentrated in certain areas of Manhattan. It wasn't until later when they started sprouting all over the outer boroughs, especially in mom and pop-friendly Park Slope, which was the last place on earth anyone would've opened one. That's when the tide turned.

Yes, it has gotten much worse in the past 10 years

It didint turn out as well as the renders suggested it would.

II’d much rather buy in this building.

It's ugly. New can be handsome, as this building in Chicago shows, but mostly it's all just crap.

Ugly as sin!!

I'm nauseated at that one as well.

Buildings aren't supposed to follow ridiculous fashion trends; Ladies' clothes are.

The hideous thing will develop hairline cracks in the concrete in the next 5 years

Those unfinished concrete columns are disgusting.

It looks like it should be in Tel Aviv with laundry hanging out of the windows.

It looks like it is going to fall over.

Cor blimey, guv!

another view

Jihadists just love these kinds of structure!

If I had that kind of money, I'd prefer to buy a lovely townhouse.

I want R81's apartment.

It's a great building.

You walk by these new buildings at night, and there aren't many lights on, even though "occupancy" is at or near 100%. It's because most of the owners aren't even living there, it's just a place to park their ill-gotten millions. There are now entire blocks in the city that are like ghost towns because hardly anyone is living there, just parking their money in apartment they have no intention of occupying. It's so fucking depressing.

I hate the way this building has changed the skyline. I work in TriBeCa and have to see this gangly, misshapen thing everyday. So out of place.

They were trying to make it unique compared to all the other glass boxes in the sky. I hate those too, and they’re everywhere now. The Lower East Side is soon going to be filled with them. De Blasio has allowed so many to go up so long as they include some set aside for “affordable housing.”

LOL what does "affordable housing" mean in Manhattan?

R97 there are varying levels based on income, and the area median income. In a neighborhood like the lower east side, someone making under 40,000 would be paying 800 for a studio, someone making under 75,000 would pay 1700, etc. But each building is different and the developers get to decide how they want it set up. It’s not a great system and it’s lottery based so they get hundreds of thousands of applications for 10-20 apartments.

affordable housing is a necessity of life. leaving a lottery system to sort this out is cruel and corrupt.

If they're building them for billionaire tax shelters, you'd think they wouldn't look like the deck of a trashy Asian Cargo ship. Their only purpose for the city is the aesthetics if they're not actually being lived in.

I think Jenga Tower is a good addition to the skyline. At least it's not just another boring box. The same with 1WTC, but I think we really missed the boat on that one; we should have rebuilt the iconic WTC sister buildings and put a slightly modern twist on them; perhaps with huge, multi-story open memorial holes with space and greenery to make a point on the impact floors.

[quote] Yes, it has gotten much worse in the past 10 years

Especially since the 2008 economic downturn.

[quote]we should have rebuilt the iconic WTC sister buildings

Never thought of that. I agree. They should have rebuilt them but BETTER. It would have been a clear sign of "we have not been defeated..in fact, we're better for it....we have risen again etc..."

& personally, I was a big fan of the original buildings...always was. A lot of people have knocked them (excuse the pun) since.

Another new mega-tall one going up, on what looks like 57th Street.

I just wish they'd keep them away from the park. They cast shadows.

I'd love to live in that building with all the absentee owners. Think of all the peace and quiet you'd have. But I must say, I love a lot of glass, but that's just too much.

Everybody hated the original WTC. It was considered an eyesore from the day it was constructed.

r104 Fran Lebowitz has gone on tirades about that monstrosity on 57th St.

[quote]that indie coffee shops were so widespread in NYC at some point that all you saw were people drinking from those cups, as opposed to now, where there are practically no indies left but all we have are crappy, overpriced Starbucks chains everywhere.

There are plenty of independent coffee shops with excellent coffee in Manhattan, especially downtown. They're not as ubiquitous, or convenient, as Starbucks, but they are there. And the coffee they make is kick-ass. Plus, after a while, they remember you and what you order. Personal is hard to find in cities anymore. Look for it where you can.

R42 WRONG! R12 is using the word correctly

[quote] Fran Lebowitz has gone on tirades about that monstrosity on 57th St.

As have most people who've been forced to look at Fran Lebowitz.

R106 I loved WTC towers. I was within a block of the 1993 attack-flurries of snow on the West Side Highway, and later that evening, at about 9.30, as I looked down Hudson St towards the towers, the lights in the upper halves of the towers suddenly came on. As a newbie in the city, i realised that nothing could keep NY down. I miss them.

[quote]I want [R81]'s apartment.

All that money so all your neighbors can look in your windows? IDGI.

These narrow things looks so unstable and everyone knows they exist to grab money.

I kind of grew to like the original WTC towers. The new one is just a snooze. They even cheaped out on the Radio Antenna. My friends bought a place in the Jenga tower, fully expecting to live in it, 53rd Floor, $20M. They got their deposit back before it was finished and moved to Sydney.

i can't believe they are building not one but two super tall buildings on the west 57 street. There are too many and no way it's gonna sell out. Also, just this past week, work on one of the buildings also on 57th street had to be stopped because a sheet of glass fell down and the construction worker died. not sure if it's one of these buildings but maybe it's another one middle of billionaire row.

i like the original twin towers. I love it when I see it in old movies shot in NYC.

I used to see it all the time when I lived in the village, pity I took very few pics of it...this is before cell phone cameras.

In New York, windows get filthy in no time. So, how does this mass of glass get cleaned on a building this tall? Or do owners live with filthy views from their 20M dollar apartments?

Have they ever done an investigation to see how many people actually reside in these buildings? Like actually live there?

Nearly a quarter of all condos in some parts of downtown Vancouver area are empty or occupied only part of the year by non-residents, according to data from the 2011 census data.

City of Vancouver report reveals 25,495 homes either empty or used by temporary and foreign residents

I bet the ledges get a lot of crud on them.

You can pay millions to live where the next 9/11 style attack will be. Smashing!

{quote] Blimey!

OP, are you the Artful Dodger?

Fear of heights here. Just looking at that building and windows makes me feel carsick. I like my windows taking as little wall space as possible. I could not stand floor to ceiling windows. I seriously think being rich makes people stupid. Who else would pay such prices for that!

[quote]I'd love to live in that building with all the absentee owners. Think of all the peace and quiet you'd have. But I must say, I love a lot of glass, but that's just too much.

There was an article that was written years ago about this very thing. I've been searching for it for ages for but can't turn it up. It was about a woman who lived in a luxury NYC building. She was the lone tenant for several months out of the year because of her neighbors.

yeah. it would be so cool to be able to blast your music out loud and nobody can complain!

I don't like WTC from a distance but then I stood at the very bottom of it and looked up and the view from the ground is cool - the way it's shaped it seems to stretch into infinity.

What's weird are the people who live in those glass boxes who don't have any curtains, even in the bedrooms.

Are there any decent looking NYC buildings erected in the last 5 years?

[quote]What's weird are the people who live in those glass boxes who don't have any curtains, even in the bedrooms.

I cannot find it for the life of me (just only articles now), but there was a video of a couple having sex in a high rise building that was shot by a construction crew working across the street. That video showed that no matter how high up you are, people in nearby buildings will have a crystal clear view of what you're doing if you don't draw the drapes.

They should have rebuilt the twin towers, a stong tall meaty solid structure. Today it seems the only thing they're building is pencil dicked structures

Twinks in skinny jeans

R16 I know! I never thought in my lifetime I'd ever see London have an iconic skyline to rival Manhattan, but they are getting one and I think it looks fantastic. Even some of the anti-pro development people are softening their dislike of it a little as it's helping redefine the place a whole, and it does look so majestic and largely in harmony with the rest of the city. Maybe this kind of new style in Manhattan is the NYC version of the Brutalist building regime that blighted London from the 1950s to '70s? This is how City of London will look after the new Bishopsgate building is complete next year:

What's the cylindrical-shaped building that looks like a giant vibrator? I see that in a lot of British tv shows.

What will they do with all those towers when the bankers leave for Europe?

The west side of Lower Manhattan has looked like shit for a very long time. Short stubby buildings. I remember going to that restaurant in Brooklyn with the views way back in 1983 and thinking "It's not very impressive, quite frankly".

(if you click on this it opens out >)

But in the '50s it looked like this >

These buildings could be anytown middle America.

The THRILL of seeing Manhattan from Brooklyn.

R134 - that's 30 St Mary Axe, aka The Gherkin. It's one of my favourite skyscrapers in London - to view, not to work in (it's remarkably pedestrian on the inside).

that building in the center of the pic of london R133 looks like it's giving you the finger LOL

R141 the tower giving the finger is Bishopsgate and is actually a scaled back version of what locals screamed was going to make London "Dubai on The Thames" (the original design is in the link). But I actually love the plan they went with, and find it very reminiscent power towers of Chicago and NYC of the 70s.

It looks Post-Apocalyptic.

Escape from New York, anyone?

R136, that is the EAST side of lower Manhattan.

They are right about it making it Dubai on the Thames. How depressing! Poor London!

[quote]Pretty ordinary box most of the way up with the Jenga effect limited to the top floors.

That's what I like about it. It deconstructs as it gets taller until it looks like it's about to fly apart.

[quote]They are right about it making it Dubai on the Thames. How depressing! Poor London!

Gurl, don't feel too sorry for us. I know you want to.

That is the financial district, known as "The City". Most of us never even see that part of London. Most of us never even see the fucking Thames.

I know, R147, but still...

[quote] I know! I never thought in my lifetime I'd ever see London have an iconic skyline to rival Manhattan, but they are getting one and I think it looks fantastic.

Maybe in 50 years (or more) London will have a skyline to rival NYC. But it's nowhere near that now. The section of London that has a tight assemblage of towers is minuscule compared the the whole of Manhattan.

[quote]I know, [R147], but still...

But still what? It can't stay looking like THIS forever.

R136 just showed herself up as poseur flyover trash with that misidentified photo.

[quote]Maybe in 50 years (or more) London will have a skyline to rival NYC. But it's nowhere near that now. The section of London that has a tight assemblage of towers is minuscule compared the the whole of Manhattan.

It NEVER will. Do you know how TINY Manhattan is? It HAD to grow upwards and it's all hard rock, condusive to skyscraper building

[quote][R136] just showed herself up as poseur flyover trash with that misidentified photo.

Flyover? Hardly. I'm a Londoner who lived in New York years ago. I got my east and west confused for a second. If that's your go to insult, it says more about YOU than me.

[quote]Do you know how TINY Manhattan is?

This “tiny.”

Yes, in comparison to London, it's tiny.

[quote]I got my east and west confused for a second. If that's your go to insult, it says more about YOU than me.

I'm not R151, but he was right to call you out. How on earth can anyone confuse the east and west side of Manhattan? And what restaurant with the views from Brooklyn are you even talking about?

[quote]I'm not [R151], but he was right to call you out. How on earth can anyone confuse the east and west side of Manhattan?

Very easily pea-brain.

[quote]And what restaurant with the views from Brooklyn are you even talking about?

A real New Yorker could tell you in a second. You belong on the Cleveland thread.

Erna's hole can take that building.

[quote]And what restaurant with the views from Brooklyn are you even talking about?

River Cafe, no doubt.

Manhattan is about the same size as central London. NYC as a whole (excluding any suburbs) is comparable to Greater London.

R150, I'd rather that than Dubai

Yeah - London is way too spread out and needs more high(er) rise construction. It’s like San Francisco - trying to keep things the same when there is an urgent housing crisis that prevents among people for being able to live there. There’s a happy medium. Like recent development in the West Village in NYC - somewhat congruent with historical neighborhood but a little taller than existing buildings (unfortunately because people are buying huge 3,000 sq ft apartments, it hasn’t actually increased the number of dwelling units- but that’s another issue)

[quote]Very easily pea-brain.

It's not very easy at all, jackass The Twin Towers were more prominent on the west side of Manhattan. You remember the Twin Towers, right?

Oh, wait--

[quote]The west side of Lower Manhattan has looked like shit for a very long time. Short stubby buildings. I remember going to that restaurant in Brooklyn with the views way back in 1983 and thinking "It's not very impressive, quite frankly".

Yes. The skyline of Lower Manhattan looked particularly like shit back in 1983 and for a very long time, what with its short stubby buildings and those two iconic structures called the Twin Towers. Yeah. Nothing but stubby buildings. And two tall, steel grey structures called the Twin Towers.

[quote]A real New Yorker could tell you in a second. You belong on the Cleveland thread.

But....I was asking you, the poser who was running off at the mouth ranting about how the "west" side of Lower Manhattan looks like crap. Don't you think you should at least have even a working grasp of a city's geography before trashing it? Or even bother to remember that the part of the skyline you were bashing as always looking like crap and having nothing but stubby buildings was the part that contained its two most iconic structures?

I love how you compounded your idiocy by continuing to post the same tightly cropped shots of Lower Manhattan post 9/11 (at least I think that was you), to make your point that this is how that part of the skyline always looked, when it didn't look like that when you were supposedly there in 1983 and not for another 18 years later.

Why don't you just wave the white flag, admit that R151 got you pegged and walk away now before you embarrass yourself any further?

Why does London have to become more crowded and more Dubai-like?

[quote]I got my east and west confused for a second.

Understandable, with dem driving on the wrong side of the road over there.

Wow! Someone (R163) has WAY too much time on her hands.

[quote]walk away now before you embarrass yourself any further?

Exactly. Off you trot!

Blimey, mate, they are going to destroy cities. It is all going to hell so fast and no one voted or wanted this.

r163 is the type of cunt that can make NYC miserable.

Yes, she's AWFUL.

People who don't like One World Trade are annoying in the same way that people who don't own a television set are annoying.

What the fuck is R163 even talking about?

It's like a tall version of Habitat '67

How to make it - let Uma show you.

sorry, I thought I was on the Kefir thread for some reason.

It's rumored that Ryan Seacrest and "girlfriend" Shayna are tenants.

You'll be right at home ..

[quote]What the fuck is [R163] even talking about?

God knows. Didn't even read the whole thing. She's been chasing me all over this thread with her misinformed nonsense.

I believe r163 is that Dear Heart/Cupcake troll. A thoroughly miserable creature.

Get a fly swatter

[quote]The west side of Lower Manhattan has looked like shit for a very long time. Short stubby buildings. I remember going to that restaurant in Brooklyn with the views way back in 1983 and thinking "It's not very impressive, quite frankly".

Doesn't the River Cafe have a view of the East Side?

[quote]I believe [R163] is that Dear Heart/Cupcake troll. A thoroughly miserable creature.

Oh, right. I hope I never cross paths with her again. It was MOST unpleasant.

[quote]Doesn't the River Cafe have a view of the East Side?

YES.

We cleared this up about 50 posts ago.

[quote]sorry, I thought I was on the Kefir thread for some reason.

Once it descends into a cat fight, what difference does it make?

The River Cafe isn't all that. And in the summer you get the stench of the East River on particularly humid days. Blech.

[quote]I believe [R163] is that Dear Heart/Cupcake troll.

WTF?

Can you link the it?

[quote]The River Cafe isn't all that. And in the summer you get the stench of the East River on particularly humid days. Blech.

I never liked it, personally.

r186 I have no idea what you're referencing.

You're not homosexual, are you, R187?

I am 100% homosexual and still have no idea what that pic is from. If looks like it's from the 70s is all I can say.

[quote]I am 100% homosexual

Do you know who THIS is, without looking it up?

What is so specifically gay about Terms of Endearment?

[quote]What is so specifically gay about Terms of Endearment?

Who ARE these people?

r192 Answer the question, dumbass. There's not one gay character in it.

[R192] Answer the question, dumbass. There's not one gay character in it.

That's the stupidest remark I've read on DL in a very long time. Dumbass!

Well, go comfort yourself, Clarissa, with Shirley and Debra.

pull her gay card

LOL I have no idea who the woman in r190's pic is either!

Oh wait a minute, the woman in r186 is Debra Winger? That's Terms of Endearment? I've never actually seen that movie. I have seen Beaches, though, which was from around the same time.

Terms of Endearment was 1983, Beaches 1988. They seem like two different eras in my life. So many people I knew in 1983, well, didn't get to see Beaches.

Terms of Endearment is one gay camp movie I've never seen. Is it any good? I've never liked Shirley MacLaine, although she was pretty good in Postcards From the Edge.

I've never liked Shirley MacLaine with her crinkly voice.

And she reminds me of that dreary Jack Lemmon whom Billy Wilder would always condescendingly cast as the little American know-nothing 'putz'.

Tearjerker. Meh. How about posting a real movie:

[quote]LOL I have no idea who the woman in [R190]'s pic is either!

You're a very ill-informed homosexual. You have a lot of work to do.

[quote]I've never liked Shirley MacLaine with her crinkly voice. And she reminds me of that dreary Jack Lemmon whom Billy Wilder would always condescendingly cast as the little American know-nothing 'putz'.

Shirley Maclaine reminds you of Jack Lemmon?

When did this thread switch from modern architecture to peculiar gay icons?

Who is the woman in r190's pic?

[quote]Who is the woman in [R190]'s pic?

Maybe if there's a GENUINE homosexual along soon - he can inform you.

It's not like the woman in r190's pic is Bette Midler or Liza or Bette Davis, someone who would be instantly recogizable.

You can't beat Helen Hunt.

r205 this is DL. Innocent, innocuous cooking threads turn into black rage holes where posters tell each other to ram a tractor-trailer up their gaping, flyover anuses.

The 'reasonable' replies are all bemoaning the end of the civilized world and culture as we know it over mayonnaise. This is nothing.

Back on topic, it's interesting no one has come forward with another recent building that they like (or at least appreciate, even if it's not their style.) As a foreign flyover, I always associate NYC with the brownstones and iconic buildings like the Flatiron & the Chrysler building. The newer ones could be anywhere. I wonder why there isn't a NYC Style, like past architecture.

The NYC Style were those 1930s ones with 'set-backs' so as not to overshadow the streets.

The NY Council doesn't seem to demand 'set-backs' any more.

r211 I know it gets a lot of flak, but I absolutely love the Seagram building, and that was what--1958? I think of it as iconic, too. It also has the setback.

[quote]The NY Council doesn't seem to demand 'set-backs' any more.

Remember when they passed a law in the '70s, that any building over a certain height had to supply something on street level in return?

I'm Burger King on East 57th St....between Madison and Park, unbelievably.

I'm R211. I meant these kind of setbacks which made Manhattan's first generation of skyscrapers look so distinctive.

The Seagram Building and the other 1960s blocks ignored that look.

[quote]I'm [R211]. I meant these kind of setbacks which made Manhattan's first generation of skyscrapers look so distinctive.

They looked great. I didn't know they were called set-backs.

Those 'setbacks' make the building look stable and less easily destroyed by The Jihadists.

Even the Flatiron looks rather top-heavy

R217 But the Seagrams Building is architecturally distinctive and it has a big plaza in front with fountains. The entire building itself is setback allowing unobstructed sunlight and air. The same applies to several of the large buildings on 6th Avenue.

I always liked the Seagram's Building and that part of Sixth Avenue, r220.

The Exxon Building

I think this was shot in the Seagram in 1960.

R223 It took me a couple of second before I realized the guy on the left was Billy Wilder and not the Dalai Lama.

I wonder if some sort of window coverings are provided in those apartments. The ones I've seen don't apPear to have anything, unless they have that system where you can press a button and make the glass go opaque. Otherwise people in other tall buildings could see you taking a bath, OR FUCKING!

r225 Maybe the windows are made of that schmancy frosting glass. You know, like you see in all the top clubs.

If you live in a glass (pent)house, don't throw stones.

[quote]If you live in a glass (pent)house, don't throw stones.

Especially up.

yes, i love the seagram building, walk by there every day.

That's the building where Bowie and Iman lived.

[quote]That's the building where Bowie and Iman lived.

Whoa! SUPER-COOL!

[quote]That's the building where Bowie and Iman lived.

In The Seagram Building?

It's an office block.

R230 It's an office building with no residential aprartments. Are you confused or making shit up?

This is the only Seagrams Bowie lived in.

I think Bowie lived in TriBeCa.

no. bowie lived in noho. i know the building. i used to live around there.

Bowie lived in 56 Leonard.

Bowie lived at 285 Lafayette Street, just south of the Puck Building.

Seems like a lot of these very tall narrow ones are going up

Oh, dear....

Those buildings in Hudson yards are massive. Perhaps r238 was confused by the photo. That’s the concrete elevator/stair core on the right, with the steel frame not yet built.

This out of control high rise buildings in NYC have become a shitshow of monstrous proportion.

All of these new residential buildings are completely unaffordable for 99% of the population.

Honest to god, if I were told that certain sections of Manhattan were going to become gated communities, I would tend to believe it at this point.

I was on the Upper East Side today and I have to say that these new buildings are a vast improvement over the incredibly bland boring ugly ass sterile buildings that were built in the 50s to 80s up there. Absolutely no architectural merit. At least a lot of the new ones make SOME effort architecturally.

Not into it.

In today's outrageous real estate market, even The Jeffersons would have trouble moving on up the the east side in Manhattan to a deluxe apartment in the sky.

Bump

Does it sway? I can’t handle buildings that sway.

Other people have mentioned other buildings they like. I like the IAC Building.

I also like VIA 57 West.

I like the one to its left. IDK what it's called, but I think an old friend lives there.

To the left of the IAC building is 100 Eleventh Avenue by Jean Nouvel.

I don't care for the WTC Transportation Hub.

My guess is R190's pic is Chita Rivera.

R253 Do you not care for it because of its inflated cost, it's aggressive appearance, the rust spots, the vandalism?

R255, I don't like it because it doesn't fit in with the surrounding buildings and because it looks like a gimmicky bird-like sculpture rather than a real building. It's funny because I actually like Calatrava's Lyon-St. Exupery Railway Station, which is very similar. The latter somehow looks like a bold piece of architectural design, and a real building. I have travelled to NYC a bunch of times but I haven't been there since the WTC Transportation Hub has been completed so I haven't seen it in person. Judging from the pictures, there's something annoying about the thin white rectangular pieces which make up the wings. It looks like pointless decoration. The Lyon station has a silver covering over that part of the building which makes it look better.

I wasn't aware of the rust and vandalism.

The interior of the WTC station looks fine though.

Compared to most government sponsored architecture, it’s awesome. Have you seen Penn Station? Maybe not perfect but better than most govt architecture. Very dramatic - especially inside.

R257 I always call the interior the Whale Carcas.

R258, I've never actually been in Penn Station, just Grand Central when I took a train to the botanical garden in the Bronx. All I know is that people complain about the demolition of the old Penn Station in the 1960s.

R259, the interior of the WTC station looks okay to me. Maybe it looks too sterile for some people. I also like Calatrava's galleria in Brookfield Place, Toronto.

Ugh, I fucking hate this "whale carcass" aesthetic that seems to be sweeping modern cities. So out of place. Doesn't age well, weathers poorly and looks so fucking idiotic next to real buildings of historical significance. Yeah there are examples of it where it does blend well like Sydney Opera House, but that was a design that was meant to fit into the context of its natural environment.

The ribs and arches are just the modem equivalent of the interior of a Gothic cathedral. What's not to like?