Monday, July 6, 2009

Ugly New Buildings In New York

The new Bank of America tower (right) on 42nd street.
FL Wright once said that architects could always grow ivy over their mistakes. There ain't enough kudzu in Georgia to cover this one. It's taller than the Chrysler Building.


The Conde Nast Building,
like a giant vacuum tube out of the old Magnavox TV belonging to the Jolly Green Giant.


A better view of that blue glass and steel tumor looming above Delancey street near my studio


The Great Abomination on Astor Place.
It makes no rhyme or reason to me, a box sitting on top of a Playdough extrusion, with half a Coke can on the top. I suppose there's some fashionista wanker out there who thinks this jerry-built eyesore of future Section 8 housing is clever. The worst part is that it dominates the vista of 4th Avenue where Lafayette and the Bowery come together. You can't not look at it.
Eeewww!

3 comments:

Davis said...

Egads - one abomination after another. Leviticus surely said something about this.

Fran said...

Oh good God, save me now. Seeing that building on Astor Place makes me shudder. I hated seeing it go up, I hated banking in the evil Chase in the lobby.

It really is like someone putting some Michael Graves-designed item from Target in the middle of a Victorian period home.

Ack.

You have no idea how many memories this stirs. How many days I flew down the entrance of that subway that you see in the front of that picture.

Fleeing the ugly building!!

JCF said...

Well, I kinda like the blue-glass "tumor" (just from the pic).

Re the first one: isn't the new 9-11 "Liberty Tower" supposed to look a lot like that?!