Downtown’s starting to clean up nicely!
Unfortunately, construction sheds take a huge toll on the aesthetic and functionality of downtown, given the narrow streets. The city desperately needs to do something about the facade law already.
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Man those things are annoying, especially when I need shots of a building.
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There’s over 280 miles of sheds in NYC now. You could stretch them down 95 from New York all the way to Fredericksburg, VA, which is an hour south of D.C.! Some have been up for 20 years.
One person died in 1979 from a brick that fell off a building, and now the city is encased in sheds. (But of course, someone just died from a shed as well in the city last year.)
Crains and the NYT both did great articles on this.
Google “The law that created the billion-dollar scaffold industry has turned city sidewalks into an obstacle course”
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There are some on Court Street in Brooklyn, such a terrible pedestrian experience. We have to work on our sidewalks in this city. They’re shoddy and getting really crowded in some areas. Around Penn Station is the first area that comes to mind, not sure what can be done.
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Hopefully they’re gonna demo this mess as well soon:
It’s not worthy of its surroundings:
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I hope of all that 175 Broadway and it’s arched window neighbor get landmarked. Everything else on the block can go;
the other two tenements are bland,
the one down Cortlandt is lazily painted and boarded up,
22 cortlandt itself is horrendous with that disgusting blank wall,
and the art deco savings bank is semi decent.
Hopefully the design is decent, SL Green is the only group that can make a glass box look classical. I hope they buy out as much of the block as possible.
Here’s something interesting; semi off topic, but thought I’d share, considering it’s right next door. these buildings were on the site of 22 cortlandt, both demolished in 1933. One was the 1893 Havemeyer building and the other was the 1897 telephone building.
One was demolished for the art deco bank and the other was demolished for a 2 story building, which was in turn demolished for 22 cortlandt.
http://skyscraper.org/tenandtaller/havkv.jpg
http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/0/5/6/a/MNY216112.jpg
http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/b/b/7/2/MNY216129.jpg
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I wonder what’s the delay for the little white building.
I’m not expecting much here, but I hope that design is decent.
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I hope they get Morris Adjmi to design and their design harks back to those beautiful old buildings. Their designs for Downtown Brooklyn and Union Square look fantastic. Otherwise, something significantly tall and modern would satisfy me.
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Don’t count on it. This is supposed to be “affordable housing.”
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It’s only going to be partially affordable, like 9 deKalb across the river. A mostly or fully affordable building would be a terrific waste of space downtown.
The pols renamed 421-a to the “Affordable NY” program, this will be one of the many developments which use it.
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OK. So there may be some hope. I’m not counting on anything great and would be pleased with a decent glass box. Anything better would be icing on the cake.
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The ugly back wall on 22 cortlandt gets even uglier.
I too wonder how they found the time to demolish a 20 story building but a little tenement is such a challenge to make disappear.
I hope they acquire that little brownish brick building. I don’t see as much potential in it as it’s two beautiful tenement neighbors to the south. Getting rid of 22 cortlandt though would be a dream to me.
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I imagine the the multiple cell towers on top of that smaller building are delaying its demolition. The lease with the cellular company may not have expired yet, and it will take time for them to remove their equipment once it’s inactive. I’m sure whichever cellular company they belong to wants desperately to find a new location nearby that they can relocate to ASAP, or their network will suffer at this very busy spot. They may have negotiated a lease extension until they can find a suitable new location (or locations) nearby that won’t be blocked by the new building.
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Good point, Brome.
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How about they put them on that cast iron 1860s building next door? That might keep the goodie-goodie alive if they purchase the rest of the block, or most of it. 
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Great news!!!
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this looks like a boutique office/retail building, so this should be the old office scheme. Interesting to note is that they’re designing the building around the subway entrance, rather than integrating it.
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