Actual conversation between Crappy and Hooper last night:Hooper: What are you reading about?
Crappy: These. They're gonna get landmarked.
Hooper: They look like those ugly pieces of shit by NYU.
Crappy: They are those ugly pieces of shit by NYU.
Hooper: You've got to be f*cking kidding me!
Crappy: And the phony Picasso statue apparently is included in the deal.
Hooper: Oh man...the only thing worth landmarking here is that green square.
This LPC decision even has AM-NY scratching their heads:
Buildings are eligible for landmarking 30 years after they are completed, which means that many pieces of modernist architecture are now coming before the commission. But many urbanists argue that much of the era's architecture was a mistake, and landmarking it would force the city to preserve what never should have been built in the first place.
What's a landmark? New Yorkers struggle to agree
From the NY Times:
Silver Towers won numerous awards, and was named one of “10 Buildings That Climax an Era” by Fortune magazine in 1966. It also won the American Institute of Architect’s National Honor Award, the City Club of New York’s Albert S. Bard Award and the Concrete Industry Board Award.
I. M. Pei’s Silver Towers Could Become a Landmark
Damn, the Concrete Industry Board Award? Maybe I rushed to judgment a little too quickly.
Conclusion to conversation:
Crappy: Maybe they'll landmark Lefrak City next.
Hooper: Yeah!
Crappy: No, wait a minute...that's in Queens.
9 comments:
One of the Village's first major transgressions
(intended as faculty housing for NYU ? I think).
They were hated from the day they went up.
Think of it,
in the midst of the "Cold War"
these Soviet inspired apartment blocks
are built. What a sense of irony!
I had to look at these atrocities
each day when I went to class.
Thank God I had only 29 credits
to complete at NYU.
I was getting annoyed at the suggestion to overturn the Landmarks Law, but now I am beginning to see that this may be a good idea.
If concrete modernism is to be landmarked, how about the NYS Pavilion in Flushing Meadows? Oh wait... it's in Queens!
"Think of it,
in the midst of the "Cold War"
these Soviet inspired apartment blocks
are built. What a sense of irony!"
Not really ironic.. there were a lot of lefties at NYU that probably embraced both the style and symbolism of these pieces o'commie shit.
"If concrete modernism is to be landmarked, how about the NYS Pavilion in Flushing Meadows? Oh wait... it's in Queens!"
The pavillion IS landmarked, so please get off of this 'they never landmark anything in Queens' rant.
Instead, please rant about how the city leaves this landmarked symbol of the boro to rust away, waiting for it to fall, because that is the cheapest option for dealing with it. They figure $80 mil to fix, $40 mil to take down, or maybe arond $10 mil to settle a few lawsuits when it collapses on some tweeded park-goers from Corona.
Bravo Bloomberg and Helen Marshall for this disgusting situation. Helen probably doesn't even know what the name if it is.. "this is the Pavillion of the something or other....". Worthless airhead.
That's true.
It was the golden era of bra burning and pinkos
at NYU!
It's interesting how presreving open space and preventing overdevelopment is a perfectly good reason to landmark Manhattan buildings such as these, but in Queens, we're told that landmarking is not for that purpose. And as for the new LPC business of attracting tourists, who is coming over from Europe to visit these hideous buildings?
It's interesting how presreving open space and preventing overdevelopment is a perfectly good reason to landmark Manhattan buildings such as these, but in Queens, we're told that landmarking is not for that purpose.
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And what is the preservation community saying about this - have commissioners play musical chairs is their answer?
Or do they just ignore it, as they do the rest of Queens (except when we say 'overturn the LPC law.')
Silver Towers are far from ugly. I think the complex is special and should be landmarked.
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