By Matt Chaban 9/24/12 2:39pm

Dizzying Designs

Hello, Central Park.

Just How Many Skinny Luxury Towers Can We Jam Onto 57th Street? Well, Here’s Another 51-Story Doozy

Forget Park Avenue, forget Central Park West, forget Bond Street. Pretty soon, 57th Street is going to be the place to live in New York.

Already we have the uber-hyped One57, where billionaires buy condos pushing $100 million. The taller-than-1WTC 432 Park is just beginning to rise a few blocks away, with the recent revelations its penthouse will be asking $85 million. And at some point in time, Gary Barnett, the man responsible for One57, will begin work on another luxury tower on the corner of Broadway and 57th Street.

As if that were not enough, here comes a 51-story bolt of luxury to the heart of Manhattan. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/06/12 10:30am

Street Fighters Too

Factional changes. (Matt Chaban)

Strolling 6½th Avenue With Janette Sadik-Khan: Office Drones and Tourists Love It, Cabbies Not So Much

Janette Sadik-Khan, the sui generis city transportation commissioner, was standing on 51st Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues as rush hour was just starting last week. Rather, she was standing at the intersection with 6½th  Avenue, her latest asphalt confection. The pedestrian passageway was designated and demarcated about two months ago, connecting up a series of plazas running from here to 57th Street. Ms. Sadik-Khan was out for her first official stroll.

“It’s kind of a secret garden, one of the new secret spaces we’ve helped create; we’ve got 500 of them in the city and we’re trying to connect people better to their surroundings, make the city that much nicer,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said.

She gazed up at the cute little green street sign one of her construction crews had installed. “6½th Avenue” it read, like a sign on any other corner, though it, along with five others along the seven-block passageway, are the only ones in the city bearing fractions. The commissioner looked down and smiled. “It’s like Harry Potter,” she said. “The 9¾ platform. Or Being John Malkovich, with the 7½ floor.”

“I love it.” Read More

By Kim Velsey 8/24/12 10:10am

Relocations

The Institute's final destination.

Diaspora From Midtown: Caribbean Diaspora Museum Moves to East Harlem

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute is making a mass migration uptown, taking its art and its artifacts and its programming from the small brownstone at 408 West 58th Street that has housed the museum for decades to a temporary place on Park Avenue and 125th Street.

The transitional space at 1825 Park Avenue will put the institute much closer to its final destination—a 8,500-square-foot firehouse on 125th Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues. Apparently the museum was just really, really eager to get out of Midtown, even if its new home wasn’t quite ready yet. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/21/12 10:45am

Best Laid Plans

Too big, too fast? (DCP)

Midtown Slowdown: Councilman Garodnick Asks City to Take Its Time on Rezoning Midtown for Superscrapers

Easy does it. That is the message from Councilman Dan Garodnick, echoing concerns of two Midtown community boards, that the Bloomberg administration is moving too fast in its plans to rezone Midtown East to allow for taller skyscrapers.

The Councilman, who represents the eastern flank of Manhattan, applauded the plan in a letter [PDF] to Planning Commish Amanda Burden last week shared with The Observer, but he worries to plan is so complex, it needs more time to be considered. The Department of City Planning argues there is enough time to get the job done before the Bloomberg administration is out in a year and a half. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/14/12 11:52am

Best Laid Plans

Now that's a skyline. (William Weber/Curbed)

Another Look at the Quite Possibly Insane Midtown Skyline of the Future

Back when we did our big report one what the Bloomberg administration has in store for Midtown East under an in-the-works rezoning, we came up with a little dream/doomsday scenario of what that might look like. Then, when the city officially unveiled the plans, they revealed that some sites could potentially see buildings as big or bigger than the Empire State Building, and they produced their own images of this brave new world.

Now, our pals over at Curbed have come up with their own rendering of a Midtown of the future, which are equally exciting and terrifying, depending on where you stand on cool new skyscrapers and the crowds and shadows that come with them. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/20/12 2:38pm

Starchitects

An early model of a possible replacement. (L&L)

Starchitects Descend on 425 Park, Present Big Plans for Possible Replacement

In what sounds like a cross between a party and a design crit from architecture college, L&L Holdings held four marathon sessions last week to explore proposals for replacing the tower it owns at 425 Park Avenue with a new modern office building.

Last year, L&L revealed it planned to tear down the 1950s office block and replace it with something new. A complication in the zoning meant L&L had to keep the bottom 25 percent of the building intact, otherwise the developer would be forced to replace the current building with something smaller. It tapped 11 of the world’s top architects to come up with their own plans, then chose four to present preliminary designs, which took place last week. Read More