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Early Addition
Gridskipper solicited picks for the city's ugliest buildings from eleven architecture-minded New Yorkers. The list includes Astor Place’s The Sculpture for Living building (which replaced a parking lot), the Queens Citicorp Building, the Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building), the AT&T Building on Church St., the Cross Bronx Expressway and anything by Trump – but the Trump World Tower isn't really that ugly. Someone even mentioned the Hearst Tower. Wow.
Gothamist thinks these structures belong on the list:
- Three Park Ave.: It assaults subway riders exiting the 6 train at 33rd Street. We hear, too, that the air quality is pretty bad in there.
- Penn Station and Madison Square Garden: It’s round and it’s dated. And it’s plain ol’ ugly.
- The Gowanus Expressway: It’s the Brooklyn equivalent of the Cross Bronx and it is corroding (image above). And it may be demolished by 2020.
- Most Times Square buildings: “Every other building there is a mess” is how Gothamist's Jen Chung put it.
- The Brooklyn Criminal Court building: It’s certainly the ugliest, most architecturally refined building for its state of disrepair.
Françoise Bollack, head architect of the firm Françoise Bollack Architects, told Gridskipper that he used to think the Socony-Mobil Building on 42nd Street was ugly, but has since changed his mind. "That gives you a feeling of the transitory nature of our feelings."
We, um, second that emotion.
Update: For all the non-Francophiles out there, Françoise Bollack is a woman, not a man. Apologies. This is not a proud moment, given that we took what seemed like endless years of French.
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Yes the Hearst Building Abortion is by far the ugliest building in manhattan!
The Verizon building by the Brooklyn Bridge!!! It absolutely devastates views from and of the bridge.
Wow, I'm shocked you didn't include the Westin in Midtown. It is hands down the ugliest building in Manhattan. For christ sakes, The New Yorker even ran a piece to that effect.
I think you hit on it with Penn Station and the whole Penn Plaza/MSG complex. I work in it and walk through it every day and it looks like it was put together with absolutely no thougth whatsoever. I've seen malls with more soul.
And I will add the 100 Centre Street courthouse to the list. The Brooklyn courthouse you mentioned is the Capitol Rotunda compared to that building.
But I have to stand up for the Pan Am/Met Life building. To me, it's always been somewhat iconic...
Guess it is all in the eye of the beholder...
I can see that Verizon building (and its hideous logo) from my bed when I got to sleep at night. It's not that I have a great view or anything, it's that that building is so huge and that logo is so massive, you can't miss it.
I hate that building. I second Beth's sentiment.
Françoise is a woman's name- if she were a man her name would be François...
WHY IS THE MCGRAW HILL BUILDING MISSING FROM THIS LIST?
UGLY ASS BUILDING
I didn't think 3 Park was so bad... I used to work in there. The elevators were sorta scary, but I don't think it's so hideously ugly.
3 Park avenue is ugly as hell on the bottom, but after the 1th floor, I actually like it. The color of the brick is cool too.
If you want to see the ugliest buildings in New York just go to Staten Island and check out some of the McMansions and those wretched excuses for townhouses. They are without a doubt the ugliest contraptions ever built.
shouldn't that be "Every other building their is a mess" if jen chung said it? sorry, i couldn't resist.
The Socony-Mobil building's not ugly at all. It just has the misfortune of being located across the street from the Chrysler building, which is pretty much the most attractive skyscraper in the world.
The 70s were a really bad time for architecture. I can't imagine the though processes that went into demolishing the old Penn Station and building MSG on top of it. "Oh look! This looks SO much better!"
I'll take Beaux-Arts over modernism any day.
Andrew -- 70's???? Penn Station went down in 63!
I'd put the Westin Times Square at the top of the list. It's the 45-story mess of turquoise and brown on 8th Avenue, between 42nd and 43rd Streets. You'd think it's a sad remnant of the seventies, but it opened in 2002.
The Avalon Chrystie--hideous as a building and as a whole new category of rock-bottom cheap, prefab developer blight that's metastizing in Manhattan. We're a world city dammit, let's show some civic pride instead of pure greed for a nanosecond and build something with architectural merit.
feels exactly like a hotel inside too
Don't leave off the hideous houses that have taken over Manhattan Beach, and Ocean Parkway, and Avenue S...
Those houses look like they should have a bottle of champagne smacked on the front of them.
450 W. 33rd St. Looks like it was designed to withstand a nuclear blast, and it's just plain fugly.
What is that cinderblock looking building in Columbus Circle? No windows, ugly, ugly, ugly. I think the museum of modern design bought it and is fixing it up.
The Verizon bldg, bar none, is the ugliest monstrosity in the city.