Midtown Residents to Pritzker Winner: Nice Try, Nouvel!

Like an unknown bar band playing on a weeknight, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel seemed to leave little impression on much of his audience yesterday, speaking at a public hearing to win an approval for his planned 75-story tower by the Museum of Modern Art.

The room at the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission was packed with residents from around the planned mid-block tower on West 53rd Street who, by and large, were vehemently opposed to the scale of it. And while it is the commissioners who ultimately vote on the approval, the community concerns could count heavily some months down the road when another approval comes before the City Council.

“I wish to enrich this neighborhood, to open the sky to the street and also to create a kind of a signal,” Mr. Nouvel said. “You can look at the skyline of the city, and you can say, ‘The MoMA is here.’”

The building, to be built three blocks north of Rockefeller Center, has been praised by many in the architectural world, and Skidmore Owings & Merrill partner David Childs showed up yesterday to speak in support of the project.

However the fight over the tower seems far from over. Liz Krueger, the local state senator, gave testimony through a staff member in which she staked out a position in strong opposition to the project, calling it “grossly out of scale.” Councilman Daniel Garodnick, who represents many of the effected residents even though the tower falls within Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s district, submitted testimony via an aide in which he said he indicated support for the community and its concerns. (Local elected officials often hold much power over the fate of such projects.)

We didn’t manage to stay until the end of the hearing (three hours was plenty), but the vast majority of those speaking appeared to be in opposition to the plan.