Results tagged “historicalpreservation”

Day One doesn't mean everything changes, but Governor Spitzer's administration has now offered a new idea for the so-called survivors' staircase at Ground Zero. The NY Times reports that the stairs would be kept "whole and intact" and "set into a long flight of steps leading from the visitors’ center at ground zero to the underground World Trade Center memorial museum, which is to open in 2009." And the Times has this picture of the model!

It's the future, now! The Daily Intelligencer posted this Skidmore, Owings & Merrill/SWIM rendering of Freedom Tower's lobby, and finds out from SOM's TJ Gottesdiener that the lobby will shed "light into the memorial pool." Notice how the way light falls in Freedom Tower's lobby mimics how light would fall in the World Trade Center's lobby. It's wild to think there's a lobby rendering - remember when Freedom Tower was just redesign upon redesign?

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its 20th annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Places in the United States and Brooklyn's Industrial Waterfront topped the 2007 list of sites. The organization describes the industrial waterfront's history:

For more than a century, the New York City region was one of this country’s dominant manufacturing hubs. Due to its location on the East River and the New York Harbor, Brooklyn was the city’s industrial center with scores of maritime operations, factories, warehouses and sugar refineries. In the second half of the twentieth century, industry declined, and what’s left of that striking architectural and historical legacy is now at risk. Also at risk are the places that make Brooklyn “work,” the buildings and sites that house manufacturing and industrial jobs.

According to the National Trust for Historical Preservation, developers eager to cash in on a hot real estate market threaten to destroy Brooklyn's industrial legacy and the organization urges people to encourage Mayor Bloomberg to adequately fund New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission. The New York Times looks at the Trust's designation and notes that in 2005, 1,740 new building permits and 1,924 demolition permits were issued in Brooklyn. We have a list and photographs of the endangered Brooklyn sites after the jump.

We guess the power of Donald Trump can thwart even ghosts of people buried in the lot where he wants to build a yooge condo-hotel. Trump's Soho project was finally approved by the city yesterday afternoon. The Daily Intelligencer calls it the "last huff of Soho's industrial grit," and spoke to the Trump Soho critic, Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation, who had fighting words: "This is a case of the city not enforcing its own laws, and that makes them vulnerable to a lawsuit."

Before the September 11 attacks, the Vesey Street Staircase was seen and used by the public on a daily basis. Located near the intersection of Vesey and Church streets, it consisted of two granite-clad outdoor flights of stairs and an escalator that led from the World Trade Center plaza to Vesey Street. When terrorists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers, the staircase provided a path of escape for hundreds of individuals. The staircase now leads nowhere and consists only of concrete slabs and blocks, a few remaining pieces of stone cladding, and steel supports – but it is nonetheless an authentic and invaluable reminder of the World Trade Center that once stood here.

The NTHP suggests that people write letters to Larry Silverstein, architect Norman Foster (who is designing Tower 2) and other officials to have them incorporate the stairs into the design. The NY Times notes that Foster has said "[the staircase poses a design challenge] that has to be addressed."

Over the weekend we stopped by a protest organized by Friends of the Tunnel Garage. Apparently developers are trying to tear down the garage, which was built in 1922 and sits at the corner of Thompson and Spring Broome Street at the edge of SoHo. While the garage looks a little run-down these days, in years past it was quite beautiful (for a garage!)-- featuring details like "terra-cotta polychromy" (?) and signage (there is supposedly a picture of a Model T under the "Park Here" on the rounded corner of the building) Our favorite detail: the G in "Garage"-- they really knew their fonts in the 1920s!

The airline media darling, Jet Blue, looks like it will be able to build a new terminal at JFK. Plus, it means that Terminal 5, the gorgeous Eero Saarinen-designed space that used to be the TWA terminal, will reopen, which comes after what must be at least months of negotiation for the Port Authority. The NY Times reports that the Port Authority "struck a deal" with the FAA, NY State Historical Preservation Office, and Advisory Counil on Historic Preservation to "restore and find another use" for Terminal 5 - and that the new Jet Blue terminal would be connected to Terminal 5 via "pedestrian tubes." Pedestrian tubes? That sounds so Jetsons and maybe perfect for the swooping, curving Terminal 5 that seems to undulate.