Results tagged “santiagocalatrava”

          

Of course: Because of budget concerns that could be hundreds of millions in overruns, the Port Authority is looking at ways to save money on the World Trade Center transportation hub design. But while the NY Times initially frightens those of you (and us, frankly) who have fallen in love with Santiago Calatrava's design with the words "the Port Authority has begun preparing plans for a more modest alternative," there is this:

In no case, [PA executive director Anthoy Shorris] said, would the hub lose its aboveground aesthetic signature: an elliptical, ribbed, winged structure that Mr. Calatrava has likened to a bird taking flight: a potent symbol of rebirth at the site of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

Continue reading "Inflation Worries Hit World Trade Center Transit Hub "

Five days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, developer Larry Silverstein released yet another round of renderings of the three Greenwich St. towers that will rise along the eastern edge of the 16-acre World Trade Center site. The final designs were unveiled yesterday at 7 World Trade Center. The buildings are scheduled to begin construction in January.

Various officials followed up with some more thoughts about Frank Gehry designing his very first playground for Battery Park. Mayor Bloomberg said, “Everything Frank Gehry touches is unique, and I’m sure it will be a great park." Check out this quote, via the Post:

"I once gave money to redo a children's playground in Central Park. I can't go in it because you have to have a child. But when I look in it, people seem to be having a great time and it's doing well."

Congratulations to everyone graduating this month! As NYU's commencement was today, with speaker jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, we decided to list the many NYC commencement speakers, with help from The Chronicle of Higher Education (if we've missed any or gotten it wrong, let us know in comments):

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired early this evening on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, a homicide/suicide on 225th St. in Queens this afternoon, and a sexual assault early this morning on West 120th St. in Manhattan.
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants black activist Sonny Carson stricken from the list of nominees for proposed street names because she thinks he was divisive and anti-white. Former Black Panther and current Brooklyn Council Member Charles Barron disagrees with the exclusion, noting that Brooklyn is full of streets named after racists and slaveholders, and calls Carson a hero.
• City Council members will vote on a proposal to restrict the growth of pedicabs in the city the day after Earth Day (Sunday the 22nd). Opponents hope the proximity of the two events will sway Council Members in favor of the pedicabs.
• The founder of the Zone Chefs diet service plead guilty along with several mobsters of running a boiler-room stock scheme designed to thin investors' wallets.
• Mayor Bloomberg reactivated a portion of the Staten Island Railroad in order to shift waste transfer from New York to New Jersey away from trucks and towards rail transport.
• Rep. Jerrold Nadler and City Councilwoman Gale Brewer are two more politicians who wrote letters in support of a class trip to Cuba, that wasn't actually a school event and that no one knew anything about at the time.
• Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff says the plan for a Santiago Calatrava-designed gondola is still in the works. The elaborate cable car system would transport passengers to and from Manhattan and Brooklyn via Governors Island.
• Despite pouring boiling water all over his victim to destroy DNA evidence, the Washington Hamilton Heights rapist did leave some at the scene and the police are in possession of it.
• The Tom Cruise-hosted fund-raiser to support a 9/11 rescue worker detoxification program isn't until tomorrow, but the City Council has already issued a proclamation honoring the late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for contributing his vitamin and sauna therapy program to the world.

Uh-oh. The Santiago Calatrava-designed World Trade Center PATH transit hub is now estimated to be $1.2 billion over budget by the construction company's contractor. Previous estimates pegged building the critically-praised "bird-like" structure at $2.2 billion in 2005, after the Port Authority approved a revised design. Why the high estimate? Labor costs and materials.

Design nerds won’t be disappointed by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2006 triennial.

- Achieve financial self-sustainability and provide maximum return to GIPEC for the purpose of supporting public benefit uses.The last one is always a bitch. Here is the RFP. This tramway-gondola system would cost $125 million and the three stations would be in Battery Park, at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and at Governor's Island. Here's hoping it can happen, given the restrictions on the island's use.

Praise be: The NY Times reports that building of the new World Trade Center have commenced with the first work on Santiago Calatrava's PATH transit hub for the Port Authority. Workers constructed a wooden trough that will become a retaining wall for a future, temporary PATH train placement (if you like learning about where the rebar goes, you'll love this article). And while some September 11 victims' groups want to stop the Port Authority's building, the Port Authority is moving on. The Times asked the PA's chairman "about the absence of fanfare yesterday," and Anthony R. Coscia replied, "I think people have become so jaded by the inordinate amount of ceremonies that have occurred at that site - disproportionate to what's actually happened - that I didn't want to add to that. This is about actually building." Thank you, Mr. Coscia, as we'd gladly trade all the pomp and circumstance for something constructive, if you forgive the pun, to happen at Ground Zero. While Governor Pataki told the Today show earlier this week (while he was at the Top of the Rock) that building on the rest of the World Trade Center plan would start next year, we're doubtful any of the buildings will get done on schedule because of all the political bickering and manuvering.

Until March 5, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a show dedicated to Santiago Calatrava, the already-beloved in NY architect behind the new PATH Transit Hub at the World Trade Center. The show, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, features two dozen sculptures amongst drawings and architectural models. However, in a skeptical review in the NY Times, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wonders how the sculptures actually figure into Calatrava's process (plus, the sculptures are "mostly derivative of the works of dead masters like Brancusi"), because he seems to be more interested in engineering. And that's the sense you get from Paul Goldberger's review of the show in the New Yorker - that Calatrava is deeply aware of structure (think his Turning Torso building, think 80 South Street), if a slick salesman. It's still probably worth a visit, if only to see Calatrava's work around the world. And you can stop by the Vincent van Gogh drawings show, which is awesome.

Families of 9/11 victims are at it again. Not content after getting rid of the the International Freedom Center they are now trying to halt construction of the one thing that actually seems to be moving along at Ground Zero: Santiago Calatrava's PATH station (a station the Post calls "controversial" to which our response is "don't you mean soaring? And controversial for what? The planned shopping area?"). Seems that they are upset over an extra platform that the station didn't have before 9/11, as the new platform would stretch into the footprint of the south tower.

- Some families of September 11 victims want to block the building of Santiago Calatrava's PATH Transit Hub at Ground Zero

Eager to reassure everyone that things were moving along at Ground Zero, Governor Pataki's World Trade Center flunky chief of staff, said that the PATH Transit Hub designed by Santiago Calatrava would offer 200,000 square feet of space for retailers and bidding will start in a few months. All hell, does this mean there will be an Olive Garden down there, to compete with the Applebee's at the Battery Park Regal Cinemas? The NY Times says the retail corridor plans, which would include another 300,000 square feet along Church Street, might face "same criticism that felled the Freedom Center"; plus Cahill's remarks were to a group of business executives, including those from Wal-Mart (of course, the Port Authority chairman Anthony Coscia had to tell the Times, "It's premature, to be frank, but if you think we're planning a big Wal-Mart, the answer is no."). At any rate, if there's one thing Gothamist remembers after September 11, it's that if you don't shop, then the terrorists win! Perhaps the LMDC can build a mall to rival the one uptown...and call it "Freedom to Shop Center."

When word came out last March that Santiago Calatrava was going to build a luxury residential tower on South Street, we were cautiously excited. Sure, we'd never be able to afford to live in one of the "townhouses in the sky" but they would certainly be another jewel in the cities skyline and you can't have too much good architecture. Of course we weren't holding our breath as most of the time when something that interesting gets announced, especially in New York, something goes wrong and the project never materializes.

Yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony of the World Trade Center transit hub saw a number of politicians and designer Santiago Calatrava to the mark the first construction activity at Ground Zero. Calatrava and his daughter Sofia released doves/white pigeons into the air from Falcon Environmental Services with Governors Pataki (NY) and Codey (NJ), Senator Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg, and Tranportation Secretary Minetta looking on. The $2.2 billion transporation center will bring an estimated 10,000 construction jobs downtown, but construction won't officially begin until after September 11, when families traditionally get to visit the Twin Towers' footprints at Ground Zero. The NY Times has a cross-section graphic of the new hub and how it will hold various transit lines.

Santiago Calatrava's design for the PATH hub at the World Trade Center has been modified to meet security concerns. The base has been reinforced with more steel beams and some of the glass in the buliding's "wings" has been eliminated/ The Port Authority approved the design, which will cost over $2.2 billion. Groundbreaking for the stunning building will be on September 6, and the hub is supposed to open in 2009. Calatrava's design has been a rare, welcome critical success downtown; see more pictures of it here. It's also been a much easier design process than the Freedom Tower, probably because the structure is smaller and only has the Port Authority deciding on plans, versus a number of committees.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is giving New York and New Jersey $899 million for transit projects at the World Trade Center. The bulk of the money, $478 million, will go to an underground screening center that "would be the security conduit for all vehicles entering the ramps, roadways, loading docks and parking areas serving the new trade center buildings." Hey, that means 12 years after the first World Trade Center bombing, the government is finally coming around! The other money will go to rebuilding West Street, building the Santiago Calatrava-designed PATH terminal, and Fulton Street's underground pedestrian walkway.

While the actual Freedom Tower is years away, people can get a glimpse of a newly constructed one: Legoland out in Carlsbad, CA has updated their Miniland New York by constructing the new WTC site. Legoland explains the work:

Starting in December 2004, LEGOLAND California’s Master Model Designer, William Webb, in collaboration with a fellow Master Model Builder from Denmark, began sketching the design and creating a 3D computer model of the Freedom Tower using published photos of the winning design. The 1/70 scale model includes a “wind farm” in the top portion of the tower, which in the actual structure will use wind-harvesting turbines to generate 20 percent of the building’s electricity. Clear LEGO bricks are used in the lower portion of the building to represent glass and the overall structure will echo the profile of the Statue of Liberty. The spire on top represents the Torch of Freedom, the building itself represents her body and the wind farm represents her head and crown.

Continue reading "How Freedom Tower Gets Built In Legos"

Here's a little Mayoral Race 2005 action to tie us over: Congressman and mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner held a protest against the West Side Stadium yesterday, but he was heckled by trade union guys. According to Newsday, the trade unionists were more "amused" than menacing, and called Weiner a "loser." But Gothamist could feel sorry for Weiner, because those union guys could probably take him, it turns out that Weiner heckled back.

, a showcase of 25 high-rise buildings designed in the last 10 years. The exhibit takes a look at the evolution of the architectural genre for the 21st century, exploring innovations in structure and program as well as social and urban implications.

Herbert Muschamp it: "The tower is effervescent, lighter than air. Yet its impact on the skyline is likely to be profound, not merely as an individual work of genius but as an example of what can be achieved when a city rediscovers the quality of delight." (The building reminded him of Warhol's Silver Clouds.) Muschamp also gives Calatrava a reading list.

Some things to do this weekend: Check out Bruce Davidson's Subway exhibit at the Hermes Gallery and hang out in Chinatown for the New Year.

How unlikely is it that after the public fuss of choosing a new building and complex for the WTC site and a WTC memorial, the Port Authority now seems like the smartest city agency for simply choosing a brilliant designer to design the new transit hub? Daniel Libeskind seems like a tyrant, David Childs is Silverstein's man, the LMDC seems hopelessly caught between a number of constituents. Whereas Santiago Calatrava swoops in and proposes a transit hub that might be the most magical and rapturous structure that breathes life and brilliance into the WTC site. Maybe that's why Gothamist likes the transit hub better than Freedom Tower: It's at street level, where you can appraise it better, versus a tall building you just see from afar; it's for everyday use as a commuter station, versus an office building we may never work in. Thank you, Santiago Calatrava and Port Authority. And thank you, Daniel Libeskind, for graciously working with Calatrava to make sure his design fit in your master plan.

Mayor Bloomberg said about the design, "'Wow' is the first word that's just got to come to your mind. That's what New York's future really is, not just coming back, but coming back even better." Governor Pataki weighed in, "It is spectacular, something that will not only be a practical transit hub ... but it will be a tribute to those we lost."

Newsday reports that the design will "feature a huge, glass-and-steel entrance and will let daylight shine down 60 feet below ground to its four train platforms." The $2 billion project will also include a plaza with shops and restaurants, mechanical walkways between ferry service at the World Financial Center and other walkways that will link to the 14 subway lines.