Ourousoff Weighs In On Barclay's Center Design
The results, unveiled on Wednesday, are somewhat more promising. Some of Mr. Gehry’s original ideas, like opening views from the sidewalk into the arena, have been restored. Mr. Ratner has reduced the size of the structure, moving team offices to another site. And Shop has wrapped it in an appealing rust-colored steel skin, which will…
People are thinking too narrowly about the potential traffic mess. Of course, the intersection itself will be a nightmare, as it often is right now. Anyone headed south in Brooklyn by car from downtown will be affected. Secondary roads, like Union Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, which take cars through Grand Army Plaza and south on Flatbush will be impassable, and this overflow will work its way through Prospect Heights and Park Slope, as well as along Atlatic Avenue and 4th Avenue. No real traffic study was ever done. Phil Habib, who did the pitiful traffic study which was part of the EIS, casts his eyes downward and shuffles his feet when asked if he thinks this was a meaningful and professional study.
Ourousoff’s more interesting article on the same day took on Amanda (“the Chair”) Burden more directly than anyone has done in print that I’ve seen. Bravo!
BTW perforated cooper plates are not rust colored They may start out copper colored. They will age green just like the Statue of Liberty. and not bleed rust like iron/steel will.
Architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron and engineers Arup designed the newly rebuilt structure, which reopened on October 15, 2005. The current building is clad with perforated copper plates, which will change colors through exposure to the elements. A 144 ft. (44 m) observation tower allows visitors to see much of Golden Gate Park’s Music Concourse (see below) and rises above the Park’s treetops providing a view of the Golden Gate and Marin Headlands.
I Disagree and ENY, what you didnt see the hole when you searched for that apt or home? It didnt appear overnight you know.
And ENY good for you. You grew up and moved away. Adjacent from the site pre bubble?? I would have moved too the area was not pleasant. And we know a mile away is big deal in Brooklyn. You’re not right there.
My point is using “the hole” as an excuse to build is a bold face lie.
Ratner made it worse by tearing down whatever he could to piss off DDDB. Ward’s Bakery is casualty of this war.
The traffic will suck regardless of how car owners behave. It already does. And it will chew up more of our streets. It will come up Flatbush, up Atlantic, across Washington and Vanderbilt Avenues, and will spill over onto parallel streets too.
We had all better hope that people start driving zero emission vehicles, or our beautiful downtown Brooklyn air will get even worse. (We are already ranked among the worst in the nation – see http://greenbrooklyn.com/air-up-there-american-lung-association-gives-kings-county-d-grade/2008/05/01/)
1. The bars on 4th avenue aren’t sports bars. They are mostly community bars a horse of a different color as far as bars go.
2. I’ll stop by the De Young Museum when I am in SF. There is almost always an exception and maybe that is one of them…
“Car people are married to their cars.”
Like jack slade, you are attempting to speak for a large group of diverse people. I own a car myself and it’s no given I’d drive to the arena. When I visit Yankee Stadium, I sometimes drive but just as often take mass transit. As I mentioned previously, MSG, which has fewer transportation links than the AY site, and is located in a far more congested area, seems to do fine. The “congestion” issue is much ado about nothing.
As someone who resides near the stadium site, I certainly hope the optimistic predictions about no traffic congestion are true. But I doubt it. Car people are married to their cars. Mass transit has stated publicly it has no plans to increase mass transit options around events. And the multiple types of events needed to finance this financial albatross will be mostly one-off events, like concerts and conventions. Drivers will learn — after they spend hours stuck and honking their fool heads off on my residential street — too late that they can’t park conveniently.
The only way to really reduce the number of drivers in the immediate area of the stadium is to have substantial congestion pricing: $60 to drive anywhere near the arena on an event night should put people on a subway car.
smeyer418, the De Young Museum in San Francisco is a rust-colored building that’s amazing, blends in with the environs (the GG park), and doesn’t bleed – might be worth a visit just to check it out for architecture alone (the art collection is OK).
“we the people of PH do not mind the hole.”
Well I certainly do mind it. I’m sick of looking at it. In fact I haven’t liked it since I was a kid in the 1970s, OK?
And for the record I live within 1 mile of the arena (Crown Heights) and previously live at 521 Dean Street, adjacent to the site, from 1997 to 2001.