Leaving the Building Congress luncheon today, The Observer looked up to notice something we had never seen on the Midtown skyline before: One57! Garry Barnett's Central Park-towering apartment building is now totally a part of the city skyline, unavoidably peeking down on Columbus Circle. Read More
Robert Lederman, a crusading artist and a bit of crank who was a frequent antagonist of Mayor Giuliani, thinks the Bloomberg administration is being two-faced in expelling the Occupy Wall Street protestors tents from Zuccotti Park. He points to tents set up for holiday markets as the unjust, commercial expropriation of public space.
The holiday vendors have permits, of course, and a portion of their proceeds goes to the parks they occupy, so there appears to be a public good here, whatever your opinion of overpriced tchokes. Mr. Lederman has his own agenda, as he has run afoul of the city for trying to sell art in parks without permits. Still, his thoughts, which he just emailed around, are intriguing in light of last night's events. Read More
The sun was glistening off the blue glass of 3 Columbus Circle last Thursday. A clutch of nattily dressed real estate executives standing on the 19th floor terrace had to squint against the strong light, reflecting off the high-tech carapace of the building formerly known as 1775 Broadway. Once the headquarters of Newsweek, and before that General Motors, the building began life in 1928 as a sturdy Art Deco brick box towering over Columbus Circle. One of the biggest buildings in the city at the time, it was a show of emerging industrial might in the heart of Manhattan.
But that was before GM moved to the other end of 59th Street, erecting its glass and marble monolith. That was before the arrival of the Trump International, the Time Warner Center and the Apple store on Fifth Avenue. Glass has become big business across the city, where brick and steel still sometimes rules—the Empire State Building is still our most recognizable landmark. Glass was what Joe Moinian, the Iranian-Jewish developer, former cook and now master of some five million prime square feet, decided to go with, then. It was the boom-boom new millennium: Why tear down a perfectly serviceable building when you could simply sheath it in a slick new suit, ask those $100-per-square-foot rents (the standard for a top-of-the-line tower) and cash the checks? Read More
As founders of one of the city's most important real estate law firms, Gary Rosenberg and Warren Estis have an eye for real estate deals, and they have just snagged one for themselves at the inimitable 15 Central Park West.
On March 1, they sold a three-bedroom on the 26th floor of the Zeckendorf-developed limestone Read More
To all the Jets fans out there tonight in their green and white celebrating St. Patrick's Day, an extra shot of Jameson is in order. Despised Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was tackled on his Time Warner Center condo, scoring a million dollars less than he originally wanted. That said, the Bündchen'd back was not sacked Read More
The battle between Steve Ross and Joe Moinian over the fate of 3 Columbus Circle is only the latest in a long line of controversial developments to consume the century-old redoubt. From Robert Moses to Jackie O., from Art Deco to High Modern, Columbus Circle has been one of the great stages for New Read More
Columbus Circle has been the victim of bad architecture for decades, since Robert Moses built the Coliseum on its western flank in the 1950s, a building derided at the time as "utterly pedestrian," among other epithets. It has since been replaced by the far nicer though not always beloved Time Warner Center. Just across Read More
Mr. Sciame: I like to say that I sleep like a baby: I sleep for two hours and I cry for two hours. Only kidding. … Read More
The publishing behemoth recently closed on 811 Ninth Avenue for $17.1 million, according to city records. Lightning quick would be appropriate terminology for how rapidly this deal went down: Hearst went to contract and closed on the 21,500-square-foot property on Read More
Tom Wolfe’s preservationist friends are taking their “Save 2 Columbus Circle” campaign to the street this Thursday. A lunchtime demonstration is planned to take place outside the Center for Architecture, at 536 LaGuardia Place. The Center for Architecture/AIA New York Chapter will be gathering for a private reception in support of the new Museum of Read More
When word came that there was a protest in Central Park on Sunday afternoon to be carried out exclusively by naked girls, The Transom sprung into action, camera in hand. But on arrival, there was only a huddle of shirtless old men. Some were on bicycles. Others merely stood around writing slogans on each other's Read More
Sherida E. Paulson, former chair of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (2001-03), wrote an Op Ed in July 30's New York Times on the fate of 2 Columbus Circle, the vaguely Moorish-looking monolith designed by Edward Durrell Stone which is in danger of having its facade ripped off and replaced by a modernistic response to the Read More
Dining at Per Se is a euphoric, dizzying experience. By the time I stepped out into the street, after a dinner that lasted an entire evening, I realized that I couldn’t judge this restaurant on the same basis that I judge any other establishment. It exists in a category all its own. Per Se has Read More
Wednesday 24th
The Time Warner behemoth on Columbus Circle burps out another event tonight , as Dom Pérignon launches its newest vintage, harvested in the summer of '96 and somewhat spookily dubbed the " Vintage of Light ," within the ice-cool walls of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. We asked our man at D.P. what he Read More
