By Ananth Sampathkumar, Partner—NDNY Architecture + Design Cesar Pelli, the world-renowned Argentinian architect, died on July 19 at the age of 92 in New Haven, Connecticut. The architect gained international acclaim for the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, a pair of skyscrapers 1,483’ tall built from 1993-1996. The design combined Islamic iconography of the ‘Rub el
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(Why) Build a Full-Size Field on Gansevoort Park?
By Brian J Pape, AIA Architecture Editor A crowd of over 100 anxiously awaited the unveiling of new concept designs for the Gansevoort Peninsula part of Hudson River Park (HRP) on July 24. The joint meeting of the CB2 Parks Committee and the HRP Trust (HRPT) commenced at the new 75 Morton middle school cafeteria,
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What’s Happening at Clarkson Square?
By Brian J. Pape, AIA Architecture Editor Chances are you don’t recognize the name, but in the real estate world you can choose any name you want for your projects or even for whole neighborhoods. Witness the One Morton Square moniker from a few years back and, now, the West SOHO label for Hudson Square.
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The Hottest Street in the Village
By Ananth Robert Sampathkumar, Partner NDNY Architecture + Design It was a particularly warm day in July. I had barely parked my Citibike at the docking station at Eighth and Greenwich Avenues, when I felt the incredible heat reflecting off 1 Jackson Square. Completed in 2008, the 11-storey high-end residential condominium sits on a corner
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St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine
By Brian J. Pape, AIA In 1916-1919, five Greek families raised $25,000 to buy a tavern at 155 Cedar Street, a three-story rowhouse built around 1830 as a private residence, and transformed it into a church in the bustling immigrant neighborhood populated by large numbers of Greek, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants. It was destroyed in
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Then&Now: 501 Hudson and Christopher Street
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Then: This March 1933 photo (matching an earlier 1927 photo) of the once four-story-corner-building-next-to-a-3-story-mixed-use rowhouse, describes both as 501 Hudson Street and 131 Christopher Street. Even the GVHD Designation Report of 4/29/69 describes these addresses as one lot, though clearly they are not one building. The 12 over 12
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We Need Robert Moses
By George Capsis Robert Moses’ career ended when he wanted to build an elevated highway across Canal Street, and we locals rose in protest and closed his book forever, but in his early days when he was casually condemning bungalows in the path of the LIE he did so with imperial immunity because the car
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550 Washington Street is Moving Forward
By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Oxford’s development along West Street, across from the Pier 40 and Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) headquarters, was originally the 1930s St. John’s Terminal for the New York Central freight railroad viaduct (now the High Line). It will soon be an industrial-loft-type office building when nine stories are added
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The View From the Kitchen
By Isa Covo This month my intention was to write about iconic American songstresses. The idea came to me as I was listening to Billy Holiday, and then the fire at Notre Dame de Paris happened. From the time I heard the news, I was glued to the television and saw the spire fall, the
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Pier 40: What to Do, Again
By Brian J. Pape To quote a beloved Yogi-ism: “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” At a heated Community Board 2 public hearing on April 18th, the CB2 response to elected officials’ request to change the Hudson River Park (HRP) Act of 1998 was discussed, specifically regarding possible legislation to allow development of commercial
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New Intergenerational Housing Ideas
By Brian J. Pape George Capsis asked me to please find the nonprofit company he saw in a TV presentation about “shared” apartments designed for unrelated individuals who are living collectively on either side of a shared kitchen and bath because this was like senior share apartments he wrote about in an earlier edition. A
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THEN AND NOW: The New School for Social Research Celebrates 100 Years!
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP For the first decade of its existence, beginning in 1919, the New School for Social Research and Alvin Saunders Johnson (1874-1971), a co-founder and leader of the institution from 1922 through 1945, operated out of six renovated brownstones on West 23rd Street. Johnson and others had been on the
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The Shed at Hudson Yards
By Donna Schaper The Shed has opened its doors at Hudson Yards—and it will benefit from the best tax write-off yet for a structure that probably wins the prize for the most public money ever given to a development in New York City. That takes some doing. Calling itself “a new ritual space,” bothers me
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Lamenting the Loss of Our Lady
By Barry Benepe We have traveled to Paris every year for a month in the early autumn, staying on the west end of the Ile St. Louis adjacent to the Pont St. Louis leading to the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame. We could look over at the eastern apse of Notre Dame with
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A Historic Renovation for Jefferson Market Library
By Frank Collerius For 50 years, the Jefferson Market Library has been a staple of the Greenwich Village community, offering traditional library services and innovative programs such as Jefferson Market University, popular storytime programs, and exhibitions that celebrate the history of our neighborhood. The building—originally a courthouse well known for its role in notable criminal
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The Vessel Arrives
West Village Images by Joel Gordon The $200 million centerpiece of Hudson Yards, The Vessel comes from British designer Thomas Heatherwick and is an inverted honeycomb-like structure of platforms and stairways. There are 75 pieces in total, each piece weighing about 93,000 pounds. It has 2,500 stairs and is 150 feet tall. Other examples can be
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Restoration Hardware Transforms Historic Market District Wagon Shed
By Martica Sawin No doubt many West Villagers received, along with the Saturday, March 16th, New York Times, a glossy 360-page publication whose cover featured the former wagon shed in the Gansevoort Market Historic District. This was once the location of Pastis—across from the Gansevoort Hotel—and more recently, an empty site fronted by a thin brick facade
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Remembrances of the Lost Village: Judson Memorial Church
By Roger Paradiso On a cold and brisk October day in the Village, I made my way through Washington Square Park passing many fellow strangers. I wondered if they knew? I wondered if they knew that Judson Church and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) were going back in time to celebrate the greatest cultural
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City Council Takes Legal Action Against Two Bridges Proposal
By Brian J. Pape, AIA In the Two Bridges area of the Lower East Side, a collection of five new residential towers are planned to include over 3,000 apartments, with retail stores at the base of each project, with 700 affordable units in the mix. However, in December 2018, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Manhattan
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Then&Now: Washington Square Park Fountain
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP In support of the many events taking place in April—Jane’s Walk, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation house tours, the 50th anniversary of the landmarking of most of the Greenwich Village District on April 29, 1969—we return to our beautiful Washington Square Park (WSP). The changes here, when considered
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Congestion Pricing & Access-a-Ride: Tech Breakthroughs
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP Have you adjusted to the “Sharing Economy” yet? In NYC, the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) is supposed to control the ride-hail world, but what has happened? Well, this has been a year, or decade, of turmoil in the ride-hail/ride-share world. The TLC oversaw 143,674 for-hire vehicles in 2015,
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Jackson Square Park Reopens After Extensive Renovation
By Michael D. Minichiello On April 2nd at 11:00 a.m., City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and others will preside over a newly renovated Jackson Square Park, the triangle formed by Horatio Street and Eighth and Greenwich Avenues. Among other events at the ceremony, three new pin oaks will be planted to join the older ones
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Hey Mt. Sinai: What’s the Plan?
By Penny Mintz At several public meetings in 2016 and 2017, Mt. Sinai/Beth Israel announced its plan to shutter Beth Israel Hospital and replace it with scattered out-patient services and a new 70-bed hospital in a two-story building on East 13th Street. It took steps toward this goal with the piecemeal closure of four hospital
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All We Can Afford Is Memories
By George Capsis Perhaps nothing has so suddenly dramatized the loss of the “old” Village as the sale of the building in which the beloved White Horse Tavern has sat unchanged since 1880. Generations and generations of young and not so young people have eased their way into a chair or booth there to sip
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Death By Architecture
By Ananth Sampathkumar Partner NDNY Architecture + Design New York is going through an architectural renaissance right now. The most famous architects from around the world are designing bespoke buildings and infrastructure for the city. The new designs range from museums to skyscrapers and even waterfront piers. The West Village has benefited from the signature
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Then&Now: That Gay Street!
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP In the 17th Century Wouter van Twiller operated a brewery here before this tiny street was laid out in the early 19th Century. The first documented mention of Gay Street appeared in the Common Council minutes of April 23, 1827. Gay Street was widened in 1833. 1820s period houses
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Graffiti Art and HipHop Architecture
By Brian J. Pape, AIA There is a keenly watched legal battle being waged over creative expression, as noted in WestView News March and April 2018 articles by Catherine Revland, The 5Pointz Decision. The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) has been litigated in a jury trial for the first time, ending February 2018 with
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Architect Costas Kondylis Has Died
By Brian J. Pape, AIA Costas Kondylis was the creative force behind so many built works it is hard to catalogue them. For West Villagers, the J.D. Carlisle Development’s One Morton Square, completed in 2004, is our most prominent example. As you may recall, it was flooded during Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge, overwhelming West Street
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A Tafel Surprise
By Jon D’Orazio I wish to share something I learned only last year, concerning Edgar Tafel, whom my architect father met at the ’67 AIA Convention. Together they arranged a summer job for me in Edgar’s office on 5th Avenue for that summer. It was just before I was to begin my Masters in Architecture
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Tribute to Architect Edgar Tafel
By Brian J. Pape, AIA 39 years ago, this summer, upon the publication of Edgar Tafel’s memoir Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd Wright, my father-in-law Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum arranged an introduction with the author. I visited Mr. Tafel’s Greenwich Village architecture office and got the book inscribed with “To Brian Pape—with best wishes
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Designing Waste—Strategies for a Zero Waste City
By Mary Chandrahasan, Partner, NDNY Architecture + Design Here are some interesting numbers to get you thinking about waste. Did you know that nearly 40 percent of all food in the United States is wasted? Food waste accounts for 20 percent of materials sent to landfills and is the main contributor to landfill methane emissions,
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Escape to Nowhere
By Ananth Sampathkumar, Partner, NDNY Architecture + Design “Man Struck and Killed by Falling Debris from New York Building Fire Escape,” read the headline from an online paper covering the incident in Soho earlier this year. The irony is all too obvious. The structure that was meant to save lives ended up taking one—because of
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Then & Now: Ninth Avenue Meatpacking District
By Brian J. Pape, AIA THEN: On May 4, 1927, Hudson Street, in this view looking south from West 14th Street, shows the Herring Lock and Safe Company Building on the right (c.1849; northern third, c.1854-60). It was a five-story “Flatiron-type” factory, built in “Vernacular/Neo-Grec” style for Col. Herring, which is still virtually intact. The
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Historic MeatPacking District Development
Amazingly, since we last reported on the Gansevoort Market Historic District (Nov. 2017 issue), we see the Meat Packing District quickly becoming one of Manhattan’s “Silicon Alley” districts populated by high tech companies; not just Google/Alphabet, Apple, Samsung, Tesla, and the Chinese giant, Alibaba, but many, many others. Tech companies are drawn to the “cool”
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The West Village
By Lorraine Gibney Every person who has walked through the West Village understands that this place is unique. My family arrived in New York during the time of the Revolutionary War. Fortunately, much of our history during the 1800s was documented by my first cousin James Riordan Sr. Needless to say, the West Village has
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Developments at Hudson River Park – Celebrating 25 Years of Piers
By Brian J. Pape, AIA, LEED-AP On May 30, 2003, the first completed section of Hudson River Park (HRP), which began in 1999, was officially opened to the public in the West Greenwich Village portion from Pier 45 to Pier 51; and Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) is celebrating, even while it struggles to meet
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West Village Images by Joel Gordon: Jefferson Market Library
OUR VILLAGE BEAUTY: For the last ten years I have been photographing the nuances of light during seasons, time of day and weather changes. As a photographer I feel the parts are greater than the whole; the beauty of the individual close-up of images of the Victorian Gothic architectural style of the Jefferson Market Library
