Yours truly was asked by
Curbed to be part of a panel that revealed "the moment" that gentrification was no longer a rumor or joke but a runaway train barreling off the rails. My contribution:
The one that really floored me was the conversion of the Pennsylvania Railroad Powerhouse in Long Island City. There it was, a huge iconic industrial building built by McKim, Mead & White, a local landmark for decades. Then they removed the smokestacks, plopped a bunch of orange floors on top, glassed it up and turned it into something that became a mockery of itself. And then the LIC gentrification floodgates really seemed to open and McReilly's closed. Now it's come full circle, with Communitea, one of the early gentrifiers, itself being gentrified out — Queens Crap
8 comments:
It is not a "mockery of itself." That architectural style is uniquely New York. Look at the Hearst tower, same thing. Old factory with a skyscraper on top of it.
Wider base structure with narrower higher levels is a traditional New York thing that comes from our unique laws for light-access to the street. Look at the Empire State, wider base, narrower floors. Same thing with all the prewar residential towers in Manhattan
If you don't like bright orange, tough luck, no one likes pastel vinyl siding or exhaust-stained brownstone brick either.
I gotta say, this doesn't exactly scream "luxury" just bad taste.
I like your commentary. Go Crappy!
"It is not a "mockery of itself." That architectural style is uniquely New York. Look at the Hearst tower, same thing. Old factory with a skyscraper on top of it."
And the Hearst Tower looks ridiculous as well. If you want to live in a factory because it's somehow cool, then you don't strip all the details that made it a factory.
#1: Wider base width is not what makes it a mockery of itself. Recreating the ghost of a smokestack in glass and living inside it is what does.
"That architectual style is uniquely New York...wider base structure with narrower high levels is a traditional New York thing"
Yes its New York and yes it looks nice...WHEN ITS DONE CORRECTLY.
Art deco skyscrapers with the 'set-back' style are perfect examples of this.
Grand and Imperial-Roman proportions on the bottom and topped off with a (slightly narrower) tower.
Good examples are the Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building and the LIC Clocktower.
This however is pure crap and I dont often agree with the posts on this blog, its just that this conversion is so ugly and so tasteless that its laughable.
Glass smokestacks? Awful.
Recreating the ghost of a smokestack in glass and living inside it is what does.
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This. Its like living in the suite in the castle at Disneyland.
i've seen the inside of those penthouses. they are gorgeous.
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