O, Canada: Paper Sniffs at NYC Mega-Projects
Yesterday the Globe and Mail, Canada’s paper of record, weighed in with an assessment of Atlantic Yards and the state of NYC’s big developments in general. Basically, our neighbor to the north doesn’t seem all that impressed with what it sees. The story’s got a zinger about B2, the first non-arena building on tap for…
Yesterday the Globe and Mail, Canada’s paper of record, weighed in with an assessment of Atlantic Yards and the state of NYC’s big developments in general. Basically, our neighbor to the north doesn’t seem all that impressed with what it sees. The story’s got a zinger about B2, the first non-arena building on tap for AY (“a red-and-pink agglomeration reminiscent of a hillside shantytown”), and it notes the “stark” contrast between a $15-a-head Atlantic Yards fundraiser held at Southpaw last week and the unveiling of the luxury boxes for the Barclays Center (“you could pony up $540,000 a year for one of 12 ‘elite’ boxes, which, in an illustration that rich people operate in a different sphere of logic, are actually bunkers, located under the bleachers, with no view of the action”). The article ends by sticking it to the Bloomberg administration’s various grand and doomed plans:
Atlantic Yards isn’t the only large-scale development in trouble. At the end of March, the developer Tishman Speyer was granted the rights to build office space, parklands, and residential towers on Manhattan’s West Side Railyards. But two weeks ago, when it couldn’t change the terms of the billion-dollar deal it had just agreed to, it walked off like a spoiled child. The Bloomberg Administration now has two failures to its credit in that one spot, after its ill-fated plan for a football stadium died with its Olympic bid. Still, the administration, which doesn’t seem to grasp that New York is a city of people who live at street level, continues to push these sorts of high concept developments. Up in Harlem, city council has just approved a rezoning that will see skyscraping office buildings and luxury condos consume historic 125th Street. The local community was opposed to it, of course. Not that it mattered.
Not Mr. Gehry’s Neighbourhood? [Globe and Mail]
Railyards photo by masnyc; unhappy face by Cubtracker.
Tdeezy, excellent post and I agree with you 100%.
New York is an example of urban planning that people all over the world look to both for negative and positive examples. That global train of thinking is what gives countries such as Canada a leg up when it comes to international relations and civic pride. But instead of taking constructive criticism with a grain of salt, in true Bush fashion, some of you spit on the very thought that someone would dare critique your city as though it’s a personal attack. It’s true some of the comments in the article are silly. The thing about street level living for example when Toronto is full of highrises with more going up everyday, but still it does make some intersting points about the abuse of beaurocracy (sp?) that occurred to get this project done.
Toronto, the biggest city in Canada is hardly a Baghdad,it’s not as though Toronto is so far flung and out of touch with city living. It’s film festival is a major draw these days, as big as the Tribeca festival. Many major corporations have sister parent companies to those in New York both financial and otherwise. Oh yeah and it’s dollar increased something like 50% in the last couple of years alone to become at parity with the US dollar and Europeans and other global investors still find it worthwhile to invest in the many new developments that are going on there.
The city should be glad people are still looking at it as an example of urban culture as it becomes more and more mid-west generic every day.
hilarious. scouring the globe for any anti-AY sentiment one can find. i think the Baghdad Ledger ran something last week if you’re interested.
There’s no relevance to the source being Canadian. The project is crap, a huge transfer of public resource to a developer – not just a helping hand to promote development, but a transfer that allows millions in excess profits. And thow that it’s gotten more expensive, the costs get cut to sustain the profits and the project is not just crap, but cheap crap. And it’ll look it too.
Canadian chicks are hot.
Who cares brownstoner? Slow day?
oh yes? 11:38- what a classic example of the same arrogant American stupidity we have shown for the last 8 years. At the very least they know how to keep their streets clean.
Can there be any greater example of the irrelevancy of DDDB arguments then that they have been adopted by the most irrelevant nation on earth?
I’m with Biff too. funny how a country so many miles away can see soooooo clearly into the state of the City. It’s a sad commentary on the planning board and the Mayor- if anything can be said to describe their plans best it’s “oooooohhhhh……shiny!”
Oddly enough, magpies and crows feel the same way about little pieces of glass and coins.
bxgrl