Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Curbed NYC

NOW AND THEN

8 Lost Gems of New York's Gilded Age & What Replaced Them

SPONSORED POST

The Tech Behind the New Lincoln Continental Concept

TOWER WATCH

1,500-Foot One Vanderbilt Approved By City Planning

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COOL MAP THINGS

Mapping the Most Popular Movie Locations in New York City

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[via Metrocosm]
The folks over at Metrocosm wrangled all the film permit data from the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting from between 2011 and 2013 and put together an interactive map that shows every New York City location where a permit was issued during that span. Unsurprisingly, Midtown (Times Square in particular) led the charge with 842 permits, followed by Williamsburg (771), and the Financial District (644). You can also search by individual movie, if you've been dying to know where they shot A Bunch of Lingonberries or F-ckers (both real things, apparently).
· Filmed in NYC – 3 Years, 517 Movies, 17,241 Filming Locations[Metrocosm]
· Everywhere Movies Were Filmed in NYC, 2011-2013 [ANIMAL]
THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Proposal to Bring Pop-Up Forest to Times Square Gets Funded

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Just days after it initially launched, the Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 for a temporary forest in Times Square has reached its goal—and far exceeded it, NYDN reports. With 17 days of the campaign to go, PopUP Forest spear-header and urban ecologist Marielle Anzelone and her team have set their sights on a new "reach" goal of $40,000, which will allow them to bring more grasses, trees, ferns, and wildflowers to the short-term forest in the "most unnatural place in the world." If all goes according to plan, the forest will assume a plaza in the urban hellscape in June 2016 and stay rooted for three weeks.
· Pop-up forest in Times Square hits first funding goal [NYDN]
· Build a PopUP Forest in Times Square, NYC [Kickstarter]
THE SIX DIGIT CLUB

UWS Co-op With City's Narrowest Staircase Asks $550,000

Welcome back to The Six Digit Club, in which we take a look at a newish-to-market listing priced under $1 million, because nice things sometimes come in small packages. Send nominations to the tipline.
Sometimes small can be a good thing, like with the relatively minor$550,000 price tag on this lofted Upper West Side apartment. In other instances small can be very bad and likely pretty perilous, like with this apartment's shoebox-wide staircase. Fears and doubts about its navigability aside, the parlor-floor apartment on West 80th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues serves up some niceties, like original 1910 millwork, two walk-in closets, and 12-foot ceilings that give way to a sleeping loft where people under six feet tall can stand.
More pictures + a floorplan >>
NOW AND THEN

8 Lost Gems of New York's Gilded Age & What Replaced Them

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the New York City landmarks law, which created and empowered the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate worthy individual landmarks, interior landmarks, and historic districts to save them from the wrecking ball. But there were many fine historic structures completed before 1965 that, for one reason or another, didn't earn protection—or earn it in time. With the help of Tom Miller and his extraordinarily thoroughDaytonian in Manhattan blog, which every day offers up a detailed history of a Manhattan building, here are eight of these forgotten architectural gems. Side-by-side, note the incredibly different buildings that now stand in their stead. Sure, there are other prominent ones, but these were picked for a mix of provenance, significance, aesthetics, and contrast between past and present.
Get ready for some history lessons >>
PRESERVATION BATTLES

Should the NoMad Historic District More Than Double In Size?

Screen%20Shot%202015-03-31%20at%203.47.51%20PM.png[West 28th Street at Broadway via Google Streetview]
Since 2008, the Historic Districts Council has been pushing to expand the Madison Square Park North Historic District, and tonight, their cause may actually gain some ground. The landmarks committee of community board 5 agreed to hear the proposal, which calls for more than doubling the district's size. The current boundaries include about seven blocks, and the extension would cover an additional 20 blocks. The current borders, roughly 25th to 28th streets from Madison to Sixth avenues, would stretch to 24th to 34th streets from Sixth to Park. The 29th Street Neighborhood Association commissioned a report to advocate for the designation, and it highlights the area's "early 20th-century office and commercial structures, turn-of-the-century hotels and original mid-19th-century row houses." But property owners who spoke to the Journal think a broad-strokes designation makes no sense and is simply a move by NIMBYs to impede new development.
But they are prepared to fight >>
HUDSON RIVER PARK WATCH

Pier 40 Needs $104M, Decade-Long Overhaul To Begin Now

aaPier%2040%20Aerial%20Shot.jpgA newly released engineering report determines that it will costover $104 million and take upwards of ten years to repair the west side's deeply compromised Pier 40. The report, commissioned by the Hudson River Park Trust and combed through by Crain's, claims that more than half of the 14-acre pier's pilings are damaged and that, to avoid something downright bad, work on shoring up the structure should begin immediately.
The plan to finance the pier's overhaul with the sale of its air rights is still in place, but is moving forward glacially. In order to see the transfer to neighboring St. John's Terminal through, the city needs to create a special zoning district. The plans for St. John's Terminal still need to pass through the public review process.
· Hudson River Park's Pier 40 Needs $104M Rehab, Report Says[Crain's]
· All Pier 40 coverage [Curbed]
CORNERSPOTTER

Cornerspotted: West Street and Chambers Street in 1936

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Berenice Abbott's photos are some of the most well-known images of New York City during the Depression, so it didn't take long for an Abbott expert, Curbed commenter adrastos, to unearth the location of this week's Cornerspotter: "Yay!! I found it. I knew by looking at this picture that it was a Berenice Abbott, so I went thru my 'Changing New York' book, and sure enough, there it was. Lower West Street nos 178 - 183." The photo dates to 1936, about 10 years before the elevated West Side Highway made its way to this stretch. The Museum of the City of New York says the rowhouses were located between Warren and Chambers Streets, a block that today is lined with glassy skyscrapers and the once cobblestone street is now six lanes of traffic.
UPDATE: As commenters pointed out, After the Fall also identified the location, and did so before adrastos, though adrastos won extra points for actually looking through Abbott's books.
· Hint: Traffic and Skyscrapers Replaced These Rowhouses [Curbed]
· Cornerspotter archives [Curbed]
HOSTEL ENVIRONMENTS

Airbnb Makes Expensive Neighborhoods Even More Expensive

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A new study, commissioned byAirbnb and conducted by Thomas Davidoff, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, found that thecontroversial apartment-sharing website does indeed push up everyone else's rent, as its critics have long claimed. Davidoff found (using Airbnb's own statistics, which have been questioned by critics in the past) that Airbnb increases the price of a New York City one-bedroom by $6 per month, however he stipulated that the price increases were most notable in the more desirable areas, where Airbnb listings are most concentrated. "It's not an affordability issue. It's a luxury neighborhood issue or a bohemian neighborhood issue," he said. It's not entirely clear why the two would be mutually exclusive, though—if people are pushed out a luxury neighborhoods, one would imagine that they would turn to the next tier of neighborhoods, pushing up demand, prices, and so forth.
· Airbnb Pushes Up Apartment Rents Slightly, Study Says [WSJ]
· Airbnb coverage [Curbed]
PRESERVATION WATCH

Seagram Building's Four Seasons Restaurant May Renovate

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[Rendering via The Post.]
After last year's Picasso Curtain debacle, it should come as no surprise that Seagram Building landlord Aby Rosen is charging ahead with plans to remodel the building's iconic Philip Johnson-designed Four Seasons restaurant without the knowledge of the restaurant's owners.The Post reports that Rosen plans on sprucing up the landmarked interiors' walls and carpet and on installing new electrics, plumbing, and kitchen equipment.
Rosen wants to hang his own art in the space >>
CURBED NATIONAL

How Architects Save Money When They Build Their Own Homes

Photo by Paul Warchol via Gluck+
If one can be sure of anything, it's that when architects design their own homes, the end result is going to be high on style. And with a new piece that interviews several architects who've recently built dwellings for themselves, the Wall Street Journal would like to suggest that, compared to structures built for clients, these personal projects are actually quite practical. Granted, architects get to save on design fees and trade discounts, but as this Austin couple has demonstratedalready, it's also all about knowing where to spend money and where to conserve. Read on for three quick money-saving takeaways from WSJ's exploration into various architects' "simple, sophisticated structures that merely look expensive."
ON THE MARKET

Nobody Wants This $5.15M Over-the-Top Park Avenue Pad

Try as it might, this full-floor Park Avenue pad just won't sell. Nowback on the market for $5.15 million, the over-the-big-top circus tentaggressively striped 2BR/2.5BA apartment has been making its rounds since 2013 when it was first listed for $5.995 million. The pattern-heavy abode even went into contract in 2013, but to no avail. Just five days ago the apartment was yanked off the market with an ask of $5.095 million. But if at first second...fourth you don't succeed, try, try again. Right?
More pictures + a floorplan >>
EXTREME MAKEOVERS

Citigroup Plans Glassy Makeover for New Greenwich Street HQ

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As part of the Great Midtown East Exodus, Citigroup is relocating its headquarters to 388 and 390 Greenwich Street, and Tribeca Citizen has the first look at how the financial giant plans to revamp the 1990s structures. A recent memo sent to Citigroup employees says that renovations have begun, and they will continue for the next five years. After the makeover, the buildings "will be closely integrated into one unified building" with "a town square connecting the buildings." The facade of 390 (the shorter, fatter building) will be wrapped with glass, and the base of 388 will get the same glassy skin. Designs for the interior are still being finalized, but there will be a new lobby and single main entrance, plus a cafeteria, fitness center, and roof terrace.
See the roof terrace >>
SPONSORED POST

The Tech Behind the New Lincoln Continental Concept

VIDEO INTERLUDE

Inside New York Design Legend Milton Glaser's Sweet Studio

Milton Glaser calls himself "a designer—whatever that means." The 85-year-old is far too modest, given that he's the progenitor of two city mainstays: the I ♥ NY logo and New York magazine. He gave T a tour of his longtime Murray Hill studio, which is cozy and cluttered, filled with myriad colored pencils, mementos, scraps of paper, and his vast archives. As the camera switches betweens shots of his inspiration-inducing environs and his past work, from Mad Men to Brooklyn Brewery iconography, Glaser describes how he got his start. Appointed the official "class artist" in kindergarten, his skill at representation later meant classmates would pay him a nickel for a picture of "girls doing unspeakable things." "There was nothing else I would prefer doing than drawing," Glaser recalls. "Actually, that has persisted to this very day." Walking out the front door of his workplace, past framed art and a colorful carpet, he also mulls his legacy. "Design is an activity has social meaning," he says. "Design has impact on society, and that impact can be beneficial is much more significant to me than design as a selling tool."
· Milton Glaser [official]
· Studio Visit: Milton Glaser [NYT via Animal]

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