Sunday, February 4, 2007

"High Voltage Luxury"

Do you recognize this building? Here's a hint:

Stacks Waxed

While you're on FNY, check out the latest page about the area:

Come One, Come All: Welcome to Queens Plaza

Then head over to the developer's page, where the above artistic rendering came from:

The Powerhouse LIC

It's great that they hired a photographer to chronicle how they destroyed an LIC icon. They've announced that they'll turn this building "from eyesore to eye candy." Does this drawing look like eye candy to you, dear readers?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah... that's the old LIRR Power Plant.....later a chemical plant (I believe originally by Mc Kim Mead & White) . They removed the old smoke stacks and stacked a boring piece of crap on top of it and presto a quick, thoughtless yuppie conversion! What do you expect. This is Queens the borough of mediocre architectural solutions. Now if this were San Francisco you'd see some creativity in the reuse of industrial buildings (like the old Ghirardeli Chocolate Factory complex).

Anonymous said...

seems like they're doing a pretty nice job of preserving the historic facade. you won't even really see the penthouse stuff on top. looks to be a great addition to the area. it'll be nice to have more street life around this building. or would people rather have the chemical plant back?

Anonymous said...

The historic part of the building was not only the facade but more importantly the stacks. LIC needs more industry, not more housing. We already have enough housing here, as evidenced by last summer's blackout, thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

"it'll be nice to have more street life around this building. or would people rather have the chemical plant back?"

Why does it have to be either or? A bit of imagination could have found some adaptive reuse. Not every historic building need be made right with a carbuncle of new housing stuck on somewhere. Besides, as another writer noted, after last summer, a power plant would certainly be better than yet adding another drag to the grid. Or is it that poorer folk away from the river suffered last summer so who cares? Well, let's just wait until a Category 3 storm floods the area and the knuckleheads will discover why the waterfront was historically given over to industry.

Anonymous said...

The second poster must be an agent for the builder or one of those dopey yuppies overpaying for a riverview.

Anonymous said...

They removed the old smoke stacks and stacked a boring piece of crap on top of it and presto a quick, thoughtless yuppie conversion!

This is incorrect. The remaining structure has been sitting there for, what, a year and a half now? Very little has happened--in fact, more has happened in the past month than in the 18 months before that. Initially, I believe building permits were denied. Who knows why it's moving at a glacial pace. I bet it's a remediation nightmare.

I used to be able to see the stacks from my window. It was truly awful to see them being slooooooowly taken down. Bastards.

Anonymous said...

Dana, I'm just excercising poetic license. I know that what's depicted is just an architect's rendering of a future tasteless, sanitized abortion without soul or character. I hope it doesn't actually get built that way. But it looks as if the deck is stacked against the community with the smokestacks having already been removed from the building. I agree with you.... they're a bunch of Mother -F-----g bastards!

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