Archinect - News

Michael Kimmelman again asks: 'Should New York regulate its skyline?'

2023-10-25T15:11:00-04:00

A generation ago, the New York skyline was a global icon, shaped more or less like a suspension bridge stretched between the Empire State and the Twin Towers, making it possible to, say, pop out of some unfamiliar subway station, gaze up toward the clouds and orient oneself along the skyline’s north-south axis. Today, the skyline is vastly more complex, far-flung and difficult to picture, and it’s common to hear complaints that the city has lost its bearings.

The addition of Meganom and SLCE’s 860-foot 262 Fifth Avenue tower to New York’s accidental skyline also raises questions about legislating ‘view sheds’ and historic sightlines around the city, Michael Kimmelman writes. The city currently only has one protected vista overlooking the Financial District from Brooklyn Heights. Developers have famously been manipulating the local zoning code governing allowable height in order to receive approvals, an issue Kimmelman has preached about in earnest for the past decade.

“It’s time to rethink our assumptions,” preservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos tells him, before adding his opinion that regulations would “guarantee a collective experience, a sense of shared identity and civic meaning, which can bind New Yorkers across generations and centuries.”

Construction of 262 Fifth Avenue is expected to wrap up by the end of 2024.

Gensler and Marvel's new Brooklyn Public Library development creates 'spaces for families not just to read, but to engage'

2022-06-09T15:23:00-04:00

Some big names were on hand last week to celebrate the opening of Gensler and Marvel’s noteworthy new Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) branch in the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights.

The upgrades now make it the second-largest in the BPL’s system and are part of a larger $52 million land-sale funded push that brings with it 114 units of off-site affordable housing at the site and a suite of upgrades and repairs to nine other branches. BPL President and CEO Linda Johnson called it “the most important rebuilding” in the 125-year history of the institution. New York Mayor Eric Adams was present to note the development’s tie-ins with his political vision of rebuilding and housing policy that will go a long way in reshaping America's largest city over the next few years.

Image © Gregg Richards/Courtesy of Brooklyn Public Library.

“With monumental windows on three sides, the double-height reading room is flooded with natural light dur...

Put a park on it: BIG's Brooklyn-Queens Expressway proposal

2019-04-05T14:14:00-04:00

The crowded field of competitors who’ve proposed solutions for the ailing Brooklyn-Queens Expressway has gotten another entrant: Bjarke Ingels Group, which has unveiled a proposal that it calls “BQP.” The “P” stands for park, and in BIG’s plan, green space takes center stage. [...] the vehicles that use the BQE would be moved to a roadway that would be covered and topped with as much as 10 acres of new parkland.

"Though a cost and time estimate for BIG’s plan has not yet been made public, the firm claims it will be less expensive, and less time-consuming, than what the DOT has proposed," reports Curbed NY (click here for their detailed explainer of what the massive Brooklyn-Queens Expressway reconstruction plan is all about).

Image: Bjarke Ingels Group.

Learn more about BIG's BQE "BQP" proposal here.