May 03, 2005
Skirts & Skins Gone Awry
This Sullivanesqe 5th Ave Madam is nothing to really hoot about, but it is a nicely set and wonderfully sized against the CUNY Grad center down the street. But like many other buildings, e.g. here, the lower three floors are insulted and insulated by bad modern. Cheap modern.
Modern that seems to change its mind as it wraps around the cross street facade. Confused, its not sure how to deal with the columns. And the neo-classicalists say we aren't postmodern. How many bad pastiches do we need to show you?
Our next tasteless mini-skirt takes another 5th Ave gem and squares its lovely curves... Oh its street frontage is so sexy, until you see its legs have been squared in some sick retail joke. Poor thing.
But its so Edgy? No. No.
Posted by jmarston at 02:39 PM
April 12, 2005
1960's Skin to Faux 1860's Skin
A long empty Madison Ave ground floor, once home to the sheesh bag retailers Koret and Walborg, will lose its vaguley 60's mod design in favor of a more conservative faux historicism. Although this faux gas light anklet reskinning would fit the structure, the Backer Building, more uniformly, there is something grossly appealing about he space age windows. 'Promised Facade Changes' for any new tenant, last photo provides a rendering. I would say a slick reno on the existing could create a pretty inviting new night spot... Hopefully we can look forward to Duane Reade, NOT!
The promised street level reskinning...
Posted by jmarston at 10:38 AM
March 02, 2005
The Hotel Cavalier
Sometimes reskinning isn't done to upscale, occasionally it’s a good way to downscale a building or entrance. As was the case with Dr. Lock Shoes... which surely didn't have the same flair as this fine piece of work --
The Hotel Cavalier
Seeing as they don't rent as a hotel anymore, but as an SRO, and one of few still operating in Manhattan, perhaps they wanted to retool to their market. Surely they flew headway into any HPD regulations, and nothing says welcome to the Hotel Cavalier, then carpeted cement, corrugated steel, and a handy pay phone located right out front. I miss these browbeaten sites of downscaled, home-shabbed, and thoroughly shantytown DIY New York architecture. And then sometimes, I don't.
"This building was constructed as a hotel in 1888 by the real estate developer George R. Read, 9 Pine St. The architect was Bassett Jones, 49 Broadway. The building was a 5-story brick structure (estimated cost $45,000) intended as a hotel with "5 families each floor, 20 in all, first floor to be used as stores." these notes thanks to NYC Signs 14th to 42nd.
One side note, Basset Jones, who designed the Cavalier, also designed the Granliden Hotel.
Posted by jmarston at 05:50 PM
February 24, 2005
Updated = Downgraded
Why, why we cry, would one think mixing the banalities of painted metal and the pseudofuturism of steel tubing be the proper REskin or route to Upscaling?
Especially with highly finished stone work & well proportioned carvings, right above it? Another backfire on a building, coming off like a cheap skirt and a dirty pair of Sketchers.
This is one of those double categories, Skins and Hatin'.
Posted by jmarston at 03:02 PM
February 18, 2005
Upscaling
Februrary figures put the average price for Class-A* office space in Lower Manhattan's Financial District at about $33 per square foot, and Class-A office space in the Midtown/Grand Central District of Manhattan at $57 a square foot. This hot-hot a-go-go real estate market has sparked alot of interesting (& nauseating) Skin and Entrance upscales on existing structures; with owners hoping to lure higher paying leasees while trying to compete with the explosion of new Class-A construction.
So let it be announced, Transfer begins another new era in architectural browbeating, Skins. They'll be some crossover heat with Hatin', but surely there will be equal measure of good and bad.
Architects Moed de Armas & Shannon are big at Reskinning and Retooling existing structures in the Midtown area to get higher paying tenants into older buildings. Big proponents of glass casing and transluscent accenting, with splashy entrances. Moed have made a mint modernizing elder 1940's stone behemoths and mid-1960's brick bores with slick casings and even glossier entrances.
Two current Moed projects presently taking shape in Midtown are the reskinning of the Hippodrome, and the newly completed entrance at 350 Madison Ave, which will include a reskinning as well.
This is the squat Hippodrome, this little tart in the process of its fierce reskinning.
Hippodrome getting reskinned 02/2005
Old and new skin.
New and old skin detail.
Moed de Armas & Shannon next project, of which only the entrance is complete, is an upscaling of 350 Madison, which looks like any other boring brown brick office building, remarkable in its unexceptional presence. Interestingly enough, the old tenant of 350 is Condé Nast, who headquartered there before they got their hot new digs at 4 Times Square. Fox and Fowle's awesome 48-story LEED masterpiece. So, doing what any good building owner would after losing your main money, they applied for an addition, a project by SOM to add 26 stories to the structure. Thakfully it was killed in 2001. SOM, proud whores to corporate philandering, are always utilizing the sorcery of their fallen angel, David Childs, to build Monstrosities all around town (and the planet). Nothing as bad as the hideous Worldwide Plaza on Manhattan's westside, mind you, or surely nothing as bad as Child's Bastardization of Libeskind's freedom tower, but I wouldn't put it past them to outperform themselves.
Corner of 46th and Madison.
From Madison.
The completed entrance modification is quite good. Has that whole smokey-glass translucent-slick-schtick going. Translucent is what mirrors were in the 70's, currently the most popular option (where available) in opening up small spaces.
Here you can see the flooring whose cubes glow your path right up, its a nice use of the small shaftway between the buildings where Graydon Carter probably used to park his vintage MG while Vanity Fair was still a tenant.
So be sure to back with Transfer's Skins category to keep up with all your upscaling gossip. We'll be sure to report ole 350's continuing presence on the reskin scene.
*Class “A” Space – The most prestigious buildings competing for premier office users with rents above average for the area. These buildings have high quality standard finishes, state of art systems, exceptional accessibility and a definite market presence. (Source: CB Richard Ellis)
Posted by jmarston at 03:05 PM