[MassHistPres] lessons from New York in today's Times

[Dennis De Witt]

With all due respect. . . .    As someone who who believes  
passionately in modern architecture, has written about it, and taught  
its history and theory,  I can only say that building has minimal  
redeeming architectural merits and is urbanistically awful.  His  
other NYC buildings are a little more interesting -- but imagine a  
city built like that.  It is truly hostile to the urban environment.   
(Others can judge its social historic significance.)

It is a reasonably bad example of what was known at that very brief  
moment (from the late '50s into the early '60)  as "the architecture  
of delight" (Saarinen's term for a pair of buildings he and Harry  
Weese did — later picked up and used by Safdie).  There are good  
examples by people like Stone (yes at Columbus Circle) and  Rudolph  
(Wellesley) and Saarinen and Yamasaki and others.  That is not one of  
them.

Dennis De Witt






On Apr 1, 2008, at 12:50 PM, M Fenollosa wrote:

> Architecture
> In Village, a Proposal That Erases History
>
> <presspan.jpg>
> Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
> The 1963 O’Toole Building, threatened by development
>
> By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
> Published: April 1, 2008
> The passionate battles surrounding the birth of New York’s  
> preservation movement nearly a half-century ago seem like distant  
> memories now. For some New Yorkers the main threat to architecture  
> in the city is no longer the demolition of its great landmarks, but  
> a trite nostalgia that disdains the new.
>
> <prop190.jpg>
> Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers
> A rendering of a plan for St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich  
> Village. The lines indicate the elevation of existing hospital  
> buildings. A hearing on the project is scheduled for Tuesday.
>
>
> Well, think again. Over the last few years the growing clout of  
> developers has gradually chipped away at the city’s resolve to  
> protect its architectural legacy. The agency most responsible for  
> defending that legacy, the New York City Landmarks Preservation  
> Commission, has sometimes been accused of putting developers’  
> interests above the well-being of the city’s inhabitants.
>
> A proposal before the commission to tear down several buildings in  
> the Greenwich Village Historic District is shaping up as a crucial  
> test of whether those critics are right. A hearing on the issue is  
> scheduled for Tuesday morning, and New Yorkers would do well to  
> follow the proceedings if they care about the city’s future.
>
> The application by the St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center calls  
> for the demolition of eight structures on West 11th and 12th  
> Streets, near Seventh Avenue, to make way for a towering new co-op  
> building and a hospital. The threatened buildings range from the  
> 1924 Student Nurses Residence Building to the 1963 O’Toole  
> Building, one of the first buildings in the city to break with the  
> Modernist mainstream as it was congealing into formulaic dogma.
>
> The question facing the commission is which, if any, of these  
> buildings contribute to the character of the neighborhood, a  
> protected historic district. (If the agency sides with  
> preservationists, the battle is not necessarily won; St. Vincent’s,  
> which is financially troubled, still has the option of pleading  
> economic hardship.)
>
> Sadly, the hospital’s application reflects the pernicious but  
> prevalent notion that any single building that is not a major  
> historical landmark — or stands outside the historical mainstream —  
> is unworthy of our protection. Pursue that logic to its conclusion,  
> and you replace genuine urban history with a watered-down  
> substitute. It’s historical censorship.
>
> St. Vincent’s board would like you to believe that this is a purely  
> practical decision. The project, planned in partnership with the  
> Rudin Organization, a local developer, would be built in two  
> phases. In the first the five-story O’Toole Building would be  
> demolished to make room for a 21-story tower that would house the  
> entire hospital. (Because of the floors’ unusual height, this is  
> roughly equivalent to a 30-story building.) A 21-story residential  
> tower, flanked by rows of town houses, would replace the hospital’s  
> seven other buildings between 11th and 12th Streets.
>
> The hospital expects to get $310 million from the sale of that  
> land, which would go toward the construction of its new $830  
> million tower. (It would raise the remainder through private  
> donations and other sources.)
>
> In patronizing fashion, hospital officials have suggested that  
> preservationists are choosing buildings over lives, as if the two  
> were in direct opposition. This is the kind of developer’s cant  
> that is ruining our city. The addition of up to 400 co-op  
> apartments is about money, not saving lives. There are plenty of  
> other ways that the hospital could upgrade its facilities.
>
> The existing buildings that make up the hospital’s main campus east  
> of Seventh Avenue do not rank as major historic landmarks. Even  
> preservationists concede that the George Link Jr. Memorial  
> Building, a bland brick box dating from the mid-1980s, is not worth  
> saving.
>
> But it is not their status as individual objects that makes these  
> buildings important; it’s their relationship to the historic fabric  
> of the neighborhood. The designation of the neighborhood as a  
> landmark district in 1969 was intended to protect humble structures  
> like these. Established after local activists brought attention to  
> the destruction wreaked by urban renewal projects, the designation  
> was an affirmation that the city’s character is rooted in the small  
> grain of everyday life.
>
> The threatened demolition of the O’Toole Building is most troubling  
> of all. Designed by the New Orleans architect Albert C. Ledner, it  
> is significant both as a work of architecture and as a repository  
> of cultural memory.
>
> It was built to house the National Maritime Union, as the era of  
> longshoremen and merchant sailors was nearing an end. Its  
> glistening white facade and scalloped overhangs, boldly  
> cantilevered over the lower floors, were meant to conjure an ocean  
> voyage and a bright new face for the union. (Think of “On the  
> Waterfront.”) Its glass brick base, once the site of union halls,  
> suggests an urban aquarium.
>
> In short, you don’t need to love the building to grasp its  
> historical value. Like Ledner’s Maritime dormitory building on  
> Ninth Avenue or Edward Durell Stone’s 2 Columbus Circle, the  
> O’Toole represents a moment when some architects rebelled against  
> Modernism’s glass-box aesthetic in favor of ornamental facades.
>
> Viewed in that context, the O’Toole Building is part of a complex  
> historical narrative in which competing values are always jostling  
> for attention. This is not simply a question of losing a building;  
> it’s about masking those complexities and reducing New York history  
> to a caricature. Ultimately, it’s a form of collective amnesia.
>
> At St. Vincent’s, the damage is likely to be only compounded by the  
> design of these new co-op buildings, a sentimental faux version of  
> the past.
>
> If we continue down this path, we’ll end up with the urban  
> equivalent of a patient on meds: safe, numb, soulless. Is this  
> choosing lives?
>
> <presspan.jpg><prop190.jpg>
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