By Matt Chaban 9/10/12 6:11pm

The Neverending Story

9 Photos

A Bathroom Break at 4 WTC

Taking the Elevator and Going to the Bathroom at 4 World Trade Center

Each year around this time, Larry Silverstein invites the foreign press (plus any local outlets interested in attending) into his World Trade Center buildings, whatever stage of construction they might be in. It serves as a useful backdrop for the flood global coverage  the 9/11 anniversary always attracts as well as an equally heartening and frustrating symbol of progress, sometimes halting, at the site. Maybe a new tenant will come out of it, too, which does not hurt. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/12/12 8:00am

The Neverending Story

Video

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Is 4 World Trade Center Better Than the Big One? Inside the Other Tower About to Top Out

If it were possible for a skyscraper to quietly rise nearly a thousand feet into the sky with little notice, 4 World Trade Center would be the building to do it. It is not simply that its big brother across ground zero is stealing all the attention, though it is. When 1 World Trade Center tops out at the end of the week, following a Flag Day ceremony led by President Barack Obama, it will be another milestone for the site, one of the last. When 4 World Trade Center achieves the same fate sometime next month, will anyone notice? If not, that would be a shame, because this may well be the nicer of the two. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/12/12 8:00am

The Neverending Story

Is 4 World Trade Center Better Than the Big One? Inside the Other Tower About to Top Out

If it were possible for a skyscraper to quietly rise nearly a thousand feet into the sky with little notice, 4 World Trade Center would be the building to do it. It is not simply that its big brother across ground zero is stealing all the attention, though it is. When 1 World Trade Center tops out at the end of the week, following a Flag Day ceremony led by President Barack Obama, it will be another milestone for the site, one of the last. When 4 World Trade Center achieves the same fate sometime next month, will anyone notice? If not, that would be a shame, because this may well be the nicer of the two. Read More

By Matt Chaban 2/15/12 6:16pm

Dizzying Designs

9 Photos

51 Astor Place

Now We Get It: Minsikoff’s 51 Astor May Be New York’s Strangest New Building

It’s one of the more unusual buildings in the city—an office building smack in the middle of Astor Place, designed by one of the world’s top architects. But as Edward Minsikoff’s 51 Astor Place, designed by Fumihiko Maki, comes closer to reality, the building has defied understanding.

Now, it has finally launched its website with updated renderings and floorplans (spotted by Curbed) which finally helps us get what the building is all about. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/19/11 7:02pm

Starchitects

An early proposal by Kevin Roche for a new U.N. tower—it's not Maki, but you get the idea. (KRJDA)

U.N. Architects Back to the Drawing Board; Pritzker Winner Still on Board

The United Nations has a long tradition of employing the world’s finest architects.

The original Secretariat complex was the work of Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, two of the most revered designers ever to pick up a T-square. DC-1 and DC-2, the 1976 expansion of the campus better known as U.N. Plaza, was designed by Kevin Roche, builder of many New York towers and heir to the throne of Eero Saarinen.

In 2002, when it came time to plan for a new tower to house this globetrotting workforce, the United Nations Development Corporation, the city agency that handles all U.N. property, held a competition. It was open only to Pritzker Prize winners, and Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki was selected in 2004. Not long after, the project ran into political hurdles and was put on hold, but earlier this month Albany, the city and the U.N. reached a deal so the project can move forward. Almost as soon as the ink had dried on the land swap, Mr. Maki and his local partners, FXFowle, unrolled their blueprints and got back to work. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/03/11 8:20pm

The Neverending Story

Getting Stoned at 150 Greenwich Street [Pics]

The folks at Silverstein Properties returned from a Roman holiday last month.

The trip was for business, though the builders and architects who traveled to Carrara, Italy, no doubt derived some pleasure from seeing the lobby of 4 World Trade Center taking shape before their eyes. At a huge stonecutting facility in this Mediterranean town Read More

By Matthew Schuerman 9/06/07 9:19pm

Windows on the World Trade Center

Anticipating the type of questions that arise this time of year, developer Larry Silverstein held a press conference today to assure everybody that rebuilding at the World Trade Center site continued on track, that shovels will go into the ground for his three towers in January, and that they would open in 2012.

If Read More