As The Observer and others have been lamenting for some time now, the day has passed for Jet Age JFK. Terminal 3 is being demolished to make way for more airplane parking to accommodate Delta's expansion of Terminal 4. And now we learn that the same fate has befallen the Sundrome, which was unceremoniously destroyed last year, with no immediate plans for replacement. This leaves only the still-shuttered Terminal 5 as the last remnant of midcentury JFK.

And yet while a piece of architectural history may be gone, it could mean smoother flying for those in and out of JFK, which is really what the airport is all about.

Yesterday, the Port Authority approved JetBlue's plans for what it is calling T5i, an expansion of its three-year-old Terminal 5 to accommodate the carrier's growing international flights (plus a Steve Jobs riff). The project will cost $200 million, create $325 million in economic activity, and add six new gates, freeing up space at Terminal 4 where JetBlue currently operates its international flights from.

“By 2030, more than 160 million people will fly through our airports annually,” Port Authority deputy executive director Bill Baroni said at yesterday's board meeting, when the expansion was approved. “They deserve the best customer experience in the best terminals."

And that is the challenge of airport preservation. Those six new gates will not occupy the space that was vacated by I.M. Pei's Terminal 6. Instead, five new hard stands will be built, the aviation term for parking spots. This is the same fate that befell Terminal 3—it became seven parking spots.

This may seem like an ignominious fate for some remarkable, groundbreaking buildings. Terminal 6 contained the first free-standing glass wall even built, which is to say not supported by a steel structure, just the glass. It was an architectural marvel, forever lost, and now we learn not even to be replaced by another building.

But this is an airport. It is hard enough turning an old factory into a museum, or converting an office tower into apartments, harder still to make that 80-year-old office building feel brand new. At our airports, functional reuse is almost impossible. The planes are too big, as is the security apparatus, and even the functioning of the industry.

Part of the reason JFK needs all that terminal-side parking is because the lean, mean airlines struggling to survive today fly so many more flights, turn so many more planes, than they used to. No more sitting at the gate, or in a hanger—the babies have to move, move, move. And for that, they need room.

"There's a need for parking, certainly," Port Authority spokesman Ron Marisco said.

And so, JFK now has six terminals instead of eight, and never, almost certainly never, will again.

Welcome back. (Getty)

Air Force One was headed to Minnesota today, where the president was unveiling a new jobs program for veterans, but en route, the press office revealed that when President Obama visits New York in two weeks, the World Trade Center will be among his stops.

During a press gaggle on the flight, deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the visit was scheduled to coincide with Flag Day. (Not mentioned: It would also coincide with a fundraiser that night at Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick's West Village townhouse.)

"On Thursday, June 14th, the President will visit the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's World Trade Center site, where he'll receive a briefing on construction progress," Mr. Earnest said, according to the pool report. "The visit will be a preview of the One World Trade Center topping-off ceremony, which will symbolize the near-completion of the iconic building's framework.  So, again, that's June 14th."

The president has been a frequent visitor to the site, coming here not only on the anniversary of the attacks in 2008 and last fall, for the decennial of the attacks, but also coming by after announcing that Osama bin Laden had been killed, for a wreath-laying ceremony that provided a good reminder of why the country has been at war for so long.

Buried in Mr. Earnest's comments is also welcome news for World Trade Center watchers—the city's tallest tower may well top out by the early summer as previously promised. You know, instead of blowing another deadline.

Freedom from the tyranny of helmets! (Gucci Little Piggy)

The Observer got an alarmed email from a reader, whose thoughtful daughter sent her our article on the proposed bike helmet legislation, which the reader does not like one bit. Her email, cleverly titled "Will mom opt for civil disobedience?," expresses some serious concerns about the possibilities of being forced to wear a helmet, and the reason such legislation does not make sense.

I am a life long liberal who has been riding bikes, without a helmet, since before you were born. I have been riding my bike in NYC for years and now ride more than ever, thanks to the wonderful new bike lanes.

A helmet law would interfere with my riding and is just one more intrusion of unnecessary government regulation into personal life. Don't give me free emergency room care if I have an accident but don't make me wear a helmet. 99% of bike accidents do not involve head injuries and most bike helmets fit so badly they would not help anyway. Wearing a bike helmet is uncomfortable, hot, irksome, cuts off hearing, and discourages biking, which is what should be encouraged.

You young fogies are such wimps, and it is this type of unnecessary regulation that drives people to Ron Paul, god forbid.

It is true that all on-the-record bike riders at The Observer wear bike helmets 99 percent of the time, namby pambies that we are, but we also respect the freedom of others to do as they choose with their safety and well being.

Meanwhile, the folks at Streetsblog dug up an interesting study showing that cities that require bike helmets also tend to be less safe for bikers. That does not mean that bike laws make things less safe, though. It could be the counter, in fact, where these laws are implemented to try and make already more dangerous streets safer.

Still, the fact remains, bike helmets may save lives, but they do not prevent accidents, which are the real problem, and which have been in decline, even as bike ridership has quintupled.

As for Ron Paul, we doubt cyclists would run into his arms considering the city's growing bike network was overwhelmingly financed (roughly 80 percent) through federal funds. Try and find a private contractor who would pony up for that.

Going up. (original image:Dave Hogarty/Curbed, with additions by NYO)

Last night, The Observer got a glimpse of the super-tall residential tower Gary Barnett has planned for Broadway and 57th Street, just one block away from his already very tall One57.

Our good friends at Curbed picked up on this and were brilliant enough to photoshop the two onto the same skyline. It is quite the striking image, but not quite complete.

After all, rival 432 Park is already underway—and looking for more investors, if you're interested, as The Journal revealed yesterday—so we figured, what the hey, let's put them all together.

Welcome to your new skyline, circa 2015.

Scofflaw? (Bridget Flemming/Downtown from Behind)

City Councilman David Greenfield is introducing a bill today to require every New York City cyclist to wear a bike helmet.

It is an intriguing proposal on a number of levels.

Currently, only children 13 and younger are required to wear a bike helmet. Think of the last time you saw a cyclist cruising by—were they wearing a helmet? Through highly unscientific personal observation, this reporter would say odds are evenly split for and against helmets. Maybe it's a little higher, hopefully, so this is simply a safety measure, and a warranted one, like seat belt laws.

This is to be the attitude of the councilman, who told The Observer, "This is the simplest thing a cyclist can do to protect themselves. To do anything else is frankly irresponsible." He pointed to federal statistics showing that 96 percent of bicycle fatalities involve people not wearing helmets (which may have as much to do with the cyclists attitude and actions as the presence of a helmet, but the numbers still speak volumes.)

Still, the best way not to get killed on your bike in the city is to keep from getting hit by a car. Which begs the question if this is not simply more anti-bike legislation masquerading as pro-bike legislation. Going back to the back-of-the-envelope assumption that half of city cyclists don't wear helmets, dumb if legal as that may be, how many of them might stop riding if it meant the choice between mussed hair and a $25 fine? With thousands of bike share bikes on the way, could this kill the program before it even gets off the ground?

There has been a rising current of such legislation amidst the bike backlash, some good, some bad. The call for bicycle registration has been widely viewed as a way to cut down ridership, while everyone can agree cracking down on bad delivery bikers is good for all New Yorkers—they can make life miserable for walkers, riders and drivers. Even the supposed NYPD crackdown on bikes is good if done right. Harassing riders safely traversing Central Park is one thing, but people going the wrong way down streets or blowing through stoplights not only present a safety risk but also create animosity among the ranks by giving the good cyclists a bad name. (Ditto angry drivers and jaywalkers, of course.)

With the exception of his complaints about the Ocean Parkway bike lane being shoveled while surrounding streets were not—a reasonable complaint, but one that also ignores that different machines for different jobs were used on the job—Councilman Greenfield is generally progressive when it comes to transportation issues, with the possible exception of leading the charge against those Department of Sanitation shame stickers, which proponents argue help enforce parking rules.

"It's basically common sense," the councilman said of his bill.

Perhaps bikers really should start wearing their helmets voluntarily. Maybe they should even be more diligent about following the laws, even when it's not convenient or entirely necessary. Sure, putting a foot down at an empty intersection where the light is nonetheless red might slow you down but it will also win you some respect. Even as a jaywalker next to you decides to cross since things are all clear.

This is what we were thinking when reading Justin Davidson's bracing defense of driving in the latest issue ofNew York magazine. Amazingly, he makes the practice sound appealing, rather than appalling.

Driving in the city is an extreme sport. Arriving from more placid places, you can feel the intensity spike as you home in on it. Lanes become notional, tailgating distances narrow, and you become more attuned to the body language of other cars. If you’re vigilant and blessed with good peripheral vision, you can often predict when another car will swing from the left to dart into a right turn.

Once you get into the lurching, irregular groove of city driving, it has a perverse adrenaline kick. Sharp as a forest beast, you process the crackle of random stimuli at a rate that would make a processor blanch. The other day, in the 30 seconds it took to drive one Manhattan block, I registered a double-parked SUV, a weaving bike messenger, a bus muscling abruptly into my lane, a jogger sprinting across the street as the light changed, an eighteen-wheeler filling the center lane, a massive pothole at my right wheel, and, at the corner, a walker gripping half a dozen dogs eager to bound into oncoming traffic. Somehow, my brain filtered those relevant observations from the streaming data of awnings and mailboxes and jackhammer noises and passersby. If mental exercise can slow the aging process, then driving in New York just might be the fountain of youth.

But for driving to work, so must every other mode of transportation—the more the merrier, and the merrier everyone will be:

Fulminating against drivers makes them feel beleaguered and resentful of changes that improve their lives. From behind the wheel, each new bike lane can look like an incursion into automotive territory, but it’s actually an amenity that gives us all more ways to travel and eases pressure on the roads. Streets designed solely as traffic conduits attract unsustainable amounts of traffic. For those who must—or choose to—drive, the best way to make the route more fluid is to help others ditch their cars.

[...]

If New York is to become a better habitat for automobiles, it should never be cheaper to drive than to take a less convenient form of transportation. To put it another way: Saving time should cost money, and vice versa. That way, car-­haters can stop spluttering about the ills of driving and let the rest of us whip around the city in ­motorized tranquility.

So long as a bike helmet law is done for the right reasons, to make the entire transportation system safer and smarter, it will be hard to argue with. But if it undermines these goals, then the whole debate is headed downhill faster than an out of control delivery bike.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Things are moving along quite nicely, it turns out.

It may seem as though there has been limited tangible progress since Related Companies was tapped to develop the project in February of last year, but that is because most of the work is being done below the surface—with on the banks of the East River and the banks of housing finance.

Since last spring, HPD and the city’s Economic Development Corporation have been at work on building new infrastructure in Hunters Point South, which had been a Daily News printing plant until a few decades ago but otherwise little else. “There was nothing there,” an HPD official told The Observer.

According to the EDC's construction report for May, sanitary sewers are 100 percent complete, storm sewers are 96 percent complete and water mains are 82 percent complete. Parks infrastructure is coming along, as well, with subsurface work more than halfway finished and features like a dog run, playground, concession building and waterfront walkways taking shape.

Furthermore, the department has pegged financing to be wrapped up this fall for the first phase of the project—project financing usually closes in May and June, but given the cost and complexity of this deal, more time is being set aside to get it done. After that, a groundbreaking is scheduled for October.

At full build out, Hunters Point South will have 5,000 apartments, 60 percent of which are to be affordable, with a particular focus on middle class housing. Related is developing the first phase with Phipps Houses and Manadnock Construction, a builder of affordable housing throughout the metro area. The two towers are being designed by SHoP Architects and KPF and will house 950 units.

Last November, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced that all of those apartments would be affordable units, as opposed to just 75 percent of them as originally planned. Affordability ranges from $32,000 a year to $130,000 a year for a family of four.

As for mega projects in general, the city still sees much strength in that area.

"Willets Point and Atlantic Yards are two of the City’s important signature projects for sure, and the timetables have been recast somewhat," the HPD official said. "Those are two big projects in a city with a lot of big projects, so I don’t know if using them as a catch-all to characterize the state of housing production in City development projects is the right way to go."

The official also pointed to progress on projects ranging from Gotham West to Arverne as other large housing projects that continue to make progress in spite of surrounding economic issues.

And now, for some mood music:

The new towers. (Wikimedia, TRD)

The boom is back on the Far West Side.

In addition to the Related Companies and Brookfield's work at Hudson Yards, and now Extell's reappearance on the scene, Larry Silverstein is moving forward with a new 60-story residential tower on West 40th Street, according to The Real Deal. It will be on the same block as Mr. Silverstein's twinned Silver Towers, which also rise to 60 stories, which should make for an interesting trio on the skyline.

The Real Deal takes a particular interest in the retail space:

The new project at 514 11th Avenue, between 40th and 41st streets, is in the early stages and has not been formally announced, a source familiar with the development said. While the overall size of the building has not been laid out, the retail portion of the project is expected to be between 150,000 and 250,000 square feet, a source familiar with the developer’s discussions said.

Those ground floors are important to driving development, apparently, because Mr. Silverstein is also eager to get his old friends at the Port Authority to take space in another neighboring tower project, where he hopes they would park their buses, and presumably provide some money to help get the project of the ground and persuade banks in making the necessary construction loans.

The project is also down the block from the 62-story MiMA, meaning things sure are getting crowded by the river. If only they could open that extra 7-Train stop.