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November 11, 2004
3 Park Avenue
Hatin' heavy on this beautiful Thursday afternoon. Every New Yorker knows this monstrosity, the catty-whompus 42 story brick monolith on 34th and Park. Always out of place, always an eyesore as you gaze, well just about any direction...
It is the Norman Thomas High School for Commercial Education - and we wonder why truancy rates are so high? The irony is Norman Thomas was a leading US socialist. Hey, flat-topped building, facing the street grid of Manhattan at a 45-degree angle, thats not way to show your desire for equality!
Funny, it is the last building built by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same firm that built the Empire State Building. How Dare?
I dare, photograph you stinky pile of brutalism! Oh, my mistake, international style.
But of course, this hapless dump of architecture has a security guard who dutily reflects the buildings' ideology. Big boy tried to get ole' Dave to give it up for 'security reasons', or at least provide 'identification' or, at last, an 'architecture license'. Long of the short, I told him to Lick Deez Nutz. America!
More hatin' at the corner of 34th and Park on the way...
Posted by jmarston at November 11, 2004 02:13 PM
Comments
I think only the first 11 floors or so are the high school. Regardless, they are miserable. Tight, constrictive escalators that don't work, lead to windowless, soul-sucking classrooms. NYU offers some non-credit courses here. Can't think of the owner, but they have some ridiculous brass plaque odes to NYC architecture inlaid on the property lines.
It's not just a monstrosity, its a highly visible monstrosity.
Posted by: bdraggled at November 12, 2004 11:19 PM
This building is very similar to the complex of buildings that make up Waterside Plaza (East East 24th Street, on the other side of the FDR).
Did they also build and design that plaza?
Posted by: eeastside at March 2, 2005 10:18 AM
No, Waterside Plaza - completed in 1974 - was built by Davis, Brody and Associates... I'm actually quite fond of the towers geometric elation, however 'towers in the park' they are in design. They also did Central Park Place, at 57th and 8th, which a part of me is also fond of, the slim green multi blocked 80's lux condo that it is.
Posted by: dave at March 2, 2005 04:04 PM
What's so ironic about it being named for Norman Thomas? That's socialist architecture at its finest!
Posted by: Peter at May 20, 2005 10:18 AM
i love this building. you guys are on crack.
Posted by: simon at May 26, 2005 01:38 PM
I must say I love this bldg. too! Monstrous and all.
Posted by: jay at September 26, 2005 11:03 PM