Development Watch: 110 4th Avenue
We’ve been checking out the development site at 4th Avenue and Warren Street for around six months now, where a crew’s been readying the foundation for a 49-unit building called the Park Slope Court (see rendering on jump). Tona Development, which had a hand in the Novo and Hotel Le Bleu, is behind the planned…
We’ve been checking out the development site at 4th Avenue and Warren Street for around six months now, where a crew’s been readying the foundation for a 49-unit building called the Park Slope Court (see rendering on jump). Tona Development, which had a hand in the Novo and Hotel Le Bleu, is behind the planned 58,000-square-footer. The building’s a Scarano design that’s slated to have interiors by Andres Escobar, who also worked on Le Bleu. Like the looks of it? GMAP DOB
No no no, this is not a modernist building at all. There’s no honesty or simplicity here, and it certainly doesn’t avoid unnecessary ornamentation (WTF portholes?). It’s not something Jane Jacobs would ever live in, but it’s not exactly Mies, either. Anyway, my point is: this thing mostly looks like a Transformer, and will probably turn into an airplane and take off as soon as it’s built, so don’t worry.
12:30 – It’s not about hating anything done after 1930. The problem is these buildings (especially the Scarano ones) are fundamentally modernist buildings(by modernist I am talking Radiant City / Moses era / CIAM modernist). They pay little attention to context, street life, or the craft of building. Instead buildings such as these favor design concepts of transplantability and economy by way of reductive thinking.
12:50- post of the year.
Another insane, grotesque, twisted, contorted, bizarre, brainsick, demented, lunatic, freakish, death-camp, torture-chamber.
Look! It stands up, it’s tall, it’s got four sides, there’s glass and brick and other building materials. It’s interior is subdivided into individual chambers called ‘apartments’ where people will live (live!). What could they possibly be thinking? It’s pure genocide. My god, they have balconies! Hiroshima all over again. And are those trees and potted plants outside of it? Stalin labor camp! What kind of insanity are they trying to unleash here?
Has darkness decended? Are we in the late times? Is this the sign of the armageddon?
“And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, even they that had life; and the third part of the ships was destroyed.
And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.
And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid heaven, saying with a great voice, Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are yet to sound.”
Some people actually like to see ‘life’ racing around them (that would be the crazy traffic on 4th ave)…
Diffrent Strokes for Diffrent Folks.
Yawn. These posts have grown so damn predictable: post about any new building and then sit back as 40+ people bitch about it. You people hate anything and everything built after 1930.
Oh what a lovely experience it will be to look out over 4th ave from those balconies. I never understand who these developers think they’re fooling with this type of ‘outdoor space’.
Yeah looks fine but it is completly self-defeating to fail to use the ground floor of all these new buildings for retail.
The biggest hurdle 4th Ave developers face is that 4th Ave is an ugly highway. The only way you are going to improve the road is to being out a more vibrant street life (which aint easy with its 8 lanes of traffic). The most effective (and nearly only) way to make the block more vibrant is to put pedestrians on it – which requires retail space.
Besides with the current crunch the eventual owners of these condos may appreciate the income a retail lease can provide.
Ehhhh… could certainly be worse. Looks like the cover of a geometry textbook. We have cubes, rectangles, circles. No triangles?