Burg Bummers: Developers Just Don't Get It
New architecture in Williamsburg just continues to disappoint. Our most recent stroll brought us face-to-face with these two atrocities. The left one is on North 9th between Bedford and Driggs. The right one is on Bedford between North 4th and North 5th Streets. It’s almost as if developers were trying to build ugly buildings…At least…
New architecture in Williamsburg just continues to disappoint. Our most recent stroll brought us face-to-face with these two atrocities. The left one is on North 9th between Bedford and Driggs. The right one is on Bedford between North 4th and North 5th Streets. It’s almost as if developers were trying to build ugly buildings…At least they’re consistent!
as long as people are buying units in these buildings, developers are going to keep building. supply and demand. developers are driven by profit, not by pleasing the local aesthetics constituencies. as much as i’d love to see some tasteful BK development, it’s crazy to think that some bureaucratic nyc entity can serve as the arbiter of blog-readership approved housing design.
Sorry, Iceberg. Landmarks does need to be reformed, but owners insensitive to their architectural gems or the history of their neighborhood should be tarred and feathered.
Uh oh, Iceberg is back!
At the high-end, it looks like buyers are willing to a pay a substantial premium for attractively designed buildings. It’ll be interesting to see if it ever trickles down the scale. I suppose developers have a reasonable sense if it pays for them to commission a handsome building or just go with eyesores like the two pictured here.
But I thought hipsters liked things other people don’t, like industrial buildings? Isn’t that why they’re hip?
These are ugly, but I can never resist a hipster dig.
Having just gone through the strangulation that is the Landmarks process, I wonder why there is not an architecture review process for new buildings. Why do we hold pre-existing buildings to such standards and these pieces of c**p can go up just outside, sometimes immediately next to, Landmark zones?
I wondered this after seeing the Linoleum-like facades of the Court St. Theater and Atlantic Center Malls go up. The rapid rate of development in our borough and the fact that these buildings are being thrown up by developers with clearly no architectural integrity shows we need a review board for new as well as older dwellings.
True enough. At least these buildings aren’t “out of context”!
The new buildings are ugly, but in that sense it’s in keeping with the whole Williamsburg aesthetic. I’ve always found the place to be pretty unattractive.
yes, in truth these building aren’t really messing up the landscape that much- it’s always been a bit of a mis-mash. it’s interesting that the “fancy” glass buildings or the buildings where someone seems to have tried something also don’t fit in- you don’t live in b-burg for the aesthetics.