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NYCHA’s Chelsea Plan Collides with Its Residents

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Save Our Homes Cropped

Residents of Chelsea’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses (FEC) protested NYCHA’s planned demolition of their buildings with a march and rally on November 8th. The lack of tenant buy-in for the plan is increasingly an issue. The high-profile architecture firm PAU (Practice for Architecture and Urbanism) recently withdrew from the project to demolish and replace the buildings alongside new housing, citing concerns about resident engagement. In an October 30th lecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture, PAU Principal Ruchika Modi presented a slide of her firm’s mission statement: “PAU is an architecture and urban design studio dedicated to building ecological, equitable, and joyous communities.” Challenged by an audience member on the firm’s seemingly contradictory involvement in the NYCHA plan, Modi announced that PAU had bowed out of it because a large number of the residents were opposed to the project.

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NYCHA’s Chelsea Gold Mine

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Rezoning Alt Cropped & Resized

A proposed rezoning of Chelsea’s public-housing sites—Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses—could transform much of the neighborhood to midtown-like density. It would introduce towers of up to 39 stories a stone’s throw from early-19th-century Greek Revival rowhouses. This New York City Housing Authority rendering shows new buildings it would construct under the rezoning in gold, viewed … NYCHA’s Chelsea Gold Mine

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The Future Still Needs the Gimbels Skybridge

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For nearly a century, the Gimbels skybridge has served as a kind of gatehouse announcing Pennsylvania Station on the next block west. Few would guess that its interior was once continuous with the station’s. The bridge will disappear if plans for the Empire Station Complex proceed. This would be a terrible loss. It is by far the most prominent aerial bridge from an era when the rest of the world looked to New York as the skyscraping, multi-level City of the Future—the crowning example of a phenomenon that influenced modern architecture and still captivates and inspires.

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Detroit’s Grand Central: Michigan Central Station

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In its much-photographed desolation, Detroit’s Michigan Central Station could be called America’s Ruin, while New York’s restored Grand Central Terminal more than ever lives up to its title as America’s Piazza San Marco. Grand Central was one of New York’s first buildings to be targeted for landmark designation, sparing it from demolition to become one … Detroit’s Grand Central: Michigan Central Station

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Detroit: City of the Future

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Henry Ford poses in the first car he made. In his 1922 autobiography, he wrote: “Industry will decentralize. There is no city that would be rebuilt as it is, were it destroyed – which fact is in itself a confession of our real estimate of cities. . . . The modern city has been prodigal, it is … Detroit: City of the Future

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Saving the Seamen’s House YMCA

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  Designed as a waterfront YMCA for sailors, Seamen’s House has scores of multi-colored terra cotta highlights. Stylized ships’ prows, waves, and Jazz Age riffs on the YMCA’s triangle logo are deployed for maximum effect, lighting up the building’s roof line and window heads. They are an integral part of the building’s composition, and their cleaning and minimal restoration would do much … Saving the Seamen’s House YMCA

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Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 2

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The 2002 World Trade Center competition entry by the team of architects Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and Steven Holl is shown in its finished form at left, and in an earlier study by Holl, at right. The images are juxtaposed as they appear in Holl’s book, Urbanisms. The finished scheme has the regimentation of … Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 2

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Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 1 – In Memory of Lebbeus Woods

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The Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan took this helicopter photo of Downtown blacked-out by Hurricane Sandy. A memorable New York Magazine cover, it resonates with a century-old genre; views of a transformed Lower Manhattan from above New York Harbor.    Lebbeus Woods died on October 30th, as Sandy left his downtown neighborhood in the darkness … Mythical Lower Manhattan, Part 1 – In Memory of Lebbeus Woods

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The Chelsea Market Deal, brought to you by ULURP

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  From right to left, Amanda Burden, Christine Quinn, Mayor Bloomberg and Boss Tweed reprise Thomas Nast’s ring of passed blame around Chelsea Market in a flyer that’s started appearing on Chelsea streets.    On October 19th, I and others met with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to discuss Jamestown Properties’ proposed rezoning of Chelsea Market, aimed at adding … The Chelsea Market Deal, brought to you by ULURP

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High Noon at Chelsea Market

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The west end of Chelsea Market’s concourse incorporates the historic Nabisco complex’s train shed. About eighty feet of its distinctive clerestory window strip would be blocked by courtyard infill from Jamestown Properties’ proposed addition of a third of a million square feet of office space above it and the High Line. Jamestown’s proposal requires a … High Noon at Chelsea Market

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