Transfer: June 2005 Archives

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June 17, 2005

Friday Photo Holiday

Amazing photos of Sao Paulo Brazil, more here.

NY photoblogger Lightningfield does Shanghai China, more here.

Pbase member Veruschka, more here.

Posted by jmarston at 10:19 AM

June 14, 2005

Booms on State St II

On the corner of Smith and State, accross the street from 14 Townhouses.

with some excellent graffiti along the site perimeter...

Posted by jmarston at 10:52 PM

June 13, 2005

The Anti-Sit: Barbwire & Tar

A first here at Transfer, an Anti-Sit submission, from reader Isabat al-Dauliyeen. He captures this especially barberous Anti-Sit in Harlem. Thanks Isabat!

Posted by jmarston at 02:47 PM

June 10, 2005

Friday the 17th

And here is London, reducing the Capital's road deaths by 21 per cent, in one year. The Mayor - London's first - Ken Livingstone, has made it happen with his Transport Strategy. Come on Mike, dont let Moses ghost push you around. Reign in the streets... The City Council made a nice gesture in March, but its going to take alot of intiative. 18 people have been killed this year already. A biker was killed yesterday on on one of the cities "preferred bike routes", which of course, does not have a bike lane. Good One. Before we put in light rail lets get our bus lanes enforced. Truck traffic is out of control.

Most of the food service on 42nd has frontside delivery everyday.

Our bike lanes, which we have a pittance of to begin with, are just double-parking lanes in most places.

One of the few remaining Mitchell-Lama complexes - a 500 unit 520,000-sf apartment complex at 96/97th St and Amsterdam - was sold "for a sum in excess of $115 million" to a new owner this week according to a Globe St news item. You can be sure big battles now loom on the horizon, the owner was quoted as saying, "It's exciting to be creating value." Just looking to ignite the dust of that powederkeg.

New York Construction News has an great June cover story, Top 20 Largest Regional projects for 2004-2005. Topping the list of projects started... dredging the Port of New York/New Jersey shipping channels, to a depth of 50ft at a cost of $1.6bn. Topping the list of completed projects... the 53-story, $631m, One Beacon Ct (731 Lex Ave), Bloomy's new HQ.

Top 10 Completed [.pdf]
Top 10 Started [.pdf]

Tadao Ando wins the UIA Gold Medal, reported by Architecture Week.

New audio from Architecture Radio, John King arch crit from the SF Chronicle, on California Contemp Architecture.

Fantastic post focused on China, from blogger City of Sound.

Touch Radio Chris Watson, field recording artist, Recorded in April 2005 on The Galapagos Islands.

Posted by jmarston at 09:57 AM

June 08, 2005

Booms on State St

14 Townhouses, by Rogers Marvel, is underway in Downtown Brooklyn. Yes, 14 in one burst.

Upcoming; more State St building boom...

Posted by jmarston at 08:24 PM

The Anti-Sit: Union Blues

Posted by jmarston at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)

Corrupting Brooklyn

Carports, highway balconies, and gimmick windows, yeehaw.

Posted by jmarston at 08:11 PM

June 07, 2005

One Bryant Park

Foundation hole for Cook + Fox's 2,000,000 sqft Bank of America HQ, One Bryant Park, at 42nd & 6th.

Posted by jmarston at 02:17 PM

The Anti-Sit: The King

Posted by jmarston at 02:12 PM | Comments (2)

The Evils of Fresh Direct

So Yin does your laundry, Torkwase raises your kids, Maria cleans your floors, Rick gets you in shape, Muhammad drives you around, and now thanks to Fresh Direct, Juan drives your groceries to you in a huge diesel truck. But, unlike these other services, the rest of us suffer for it. Pollution, more truck traffic, noise, and congestion. Double Parked assholes. Not too mention the drop in demand at the local Key for higher quality food products. Kids, watch out as a paticulate spewing diesel truck (which has to idle during deliveries to run the refrigeration) comes trundling down our quiet street at 50 to make his next delievery crosstown. Look, is your job at Burson-Marsteller so goddamned important that you have to relinquish every single personal responsibility? "Oh, but Jeff wipes asses so much better than I can, and its so convenient"

Posted by jmarston at 11:35 AM | Comments (6)

Attack of the Useless, Shutter.

Shutters, painted on... Shudder.

Counterpoint. Some sexy shutters off Canal.

Posted by jmarston at 09:36 AM

June 06, 2005

The Anti-Sit: Pile On

Posted by jmarston at 04:39 PM | Comments (1)

The Anti-Sit: Avenues and Plazas

Posted by jmarston at 12:59 PM

Ruins, Stadiums, Bubbles and Things

image credit: Museum of the City of New York

Fantastic report [.pdf] from Center for an Urban Future "to provide a detailed analysis of the broad range of other economic development initiatives undertaken by the Bloomberg administration..." besides the Jets stadium.

Brooklyn Papers on the expanded Forest Ratner plan for the Atlantic Yards... including a "620-foot tower at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues" & "jumping over Flatbush Avenue to include plots now occupied by Modell’s and PC Richard & Son".

Over at the New York Observer, Michael Calderone is calling bullshit, and rechristening it, An Iron Bubble: Housing Market Isn’t Deflating... some choice cuts here: "last year, 25,208 new residential units were approved for construction granted—the most in over 30 years."... and this one jumps right out: "There is no bubble! What has happened is, the incredible price escalation is a result of property being tremendously undervalued for a long period of time," said Leonard Steinberg of Prudential Douglas Elliman, a luxury property broker." hahaha.. yes Leonard, easy there, its just a simple case of broker bloat, fear not, take a couple more Greenspans and you'll cool down.

Jen Bekman reincarnate as Personism.

Great idea over at City Comforts, "Has anyone mapped the bubbles? What are the environmental characteristics of bubbles?" .. the housing bubble that is.

Via Daily Dose, Lost in Time gallery... fantastic.

Process Maestro & Provocateur, blowing some theory air, on Architecture Radio

Posted by jmarston at 10:04 AM

June 03, 2005

Temporary Architecture

One of the finest moments in Avalon Chrystie's life as a building was when the whole block of East Houston was a winding, twisting, undulating tunnel of plywood and netting, carving its way down the length of the site. It was a buffet of shifting sounds, sights, terrain, and experience, in many ways the antithesis of the actual structure. It was organic & situationist. Decontrolled and shifty. It was, in my estimation, one of the coolest temporary structures to rise and fall in recent time. Like shifting appendages, these temporary structures add drama, mystery, and a bit of devlishness to some of the most banal blocks in our fine City... Here are four recent examples, one of which is already history.

Posted by jmarston at 11:17 AM | Comments (1)

Sunset Boys

Posted by jmarston at 11:12 AM

Renovate Me: Deco on Lex

New Category Alert: Renovate Me. Vast swaths of New York's once gutted rowhomes, crumbling tenements, and dried manufacturing shells have been rehabbed and retooled in the recent real estate upshot, some have returned to their spectacular former glory, while others have been given functional updates. But there remains a hellva lot of beauties sitting in disrepair, overlooked by the clamoring real estate whordes, perhaps even slated for demo to make room for a substandard 'lux condo' drawn up in a half a day, thrown up in half a year. Filling in New York's stately smile with cheap dentures. Here's to cleaning the plaque, applying the bridge, and bringing some of New York's finest gems back from the brink.

Our first installment is a stellar Deco tenement building across the street from the 69th Reg Armory on Lexington Ave in the 20's. Still listed as a rooming housing, with 6 apartments on each floor... This elderly and under cared for Betty has beautiful curving windows, a sleek Deco entrance, elegant ironwork (both on the window irons and on the fire escapes) and best of all, absolutely brilliant scale. The Deco touches and gentle curves speak sophisticatedly, in an understated tone, as one of the few Art Deco buildings with only a rowhouse footprint. Bring the beauty back from the brink. Certificate of Occupancy and Photos below.

73 Lexington Ave
Completed June 3, 1941
24'8" Front / 5 stories / 52'00" Tall