Quote:
Originally Posted by NYer34
The tragedy of this site is that 417 Park is a beautiful, classic Park Ave. building. No sane city in the world would allow it to be razed. Yet its inhabitants (and some of the fanboy posters on this site) seem ready to do so.
On the same block is 405 Park, one of the crappiest buildings in Midtown. It's not individually offensive, but it represents a genre - crappy modernist post-war schlock - that we have way too much of and that any third-tier, podunk city would be happy to raze and replace. And it's underdeveloped, for better (minimizes the amount of crap) or worse (block doesn't maximize its utility).
Any sane city in the world would preserve 417 while redeveloping 405. We appear to be getting the opposite. Slow clap for your short-sighted crappiness once again, New York!
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I will say that this building is indeed quite attractive, and there are many, many buildings that deserve the wrecking ball long before this one. 240 Central Park South (
fuck 240 Central Park South:
), and MSG come immediately to mind. If there is shame to be found, it's that a lot of garbage that plagues NYC still stands, while almost objectively pretty buildings, like 417 Park Ave, may be demolished.
But if you put your mind to it, you could make a case to save most of the buildings in the city. You could make the case that the old Waldorf Astora should have been saved, but then we wouldn't have the Empire State Building, perhaps the most famous building in the world, and one which is almost universally praised for it's aesthetic and cultural beauty and importance. There are almost too many examples to list, but that is the most immediate and obvious of them (and probably the best).
NYC, in order to remain NYC, desperately needs new office stock. Even with Hudson Yards coming on line, and even with the WTC starting to fill up, and even with the Midtown rezoning, NYC's building stock is very old. In order to maintain its status as the business capitol of the world, it has to keep up with cities that have been modernizing (even London's Class-A housing stock is on average, newer, and it's not as if London is a upcoming city). There are some buildings which almost anyone would agree are far too important to tear town - GCT, the old Penn Station, the ESB, Chrysler building, Woolworth building, etc, etc - all genuine landmarks. What is this? A mid rise with a pretty facade? Those can be found all over the city.
You should really put your attention towards the countless shit buildings landmarked because of questionable historical significance, or because their design represents a pinnacle of a certain type of architecture (In that sense, 240 CPS would represent the pinnacle of the "dog shit" style), or because some mentally unstable NIMBY's don't want a skyscraper going up...in New York City. You could also focus your attention on all the rotting, excrementicious, lowrise structures all over the city, and call for zoning changes which would make them attractive for redevelopment.