I can't find a general thread on NYC so I'm starting one!

 

 

 

If you have any interest in broadcasting, you should check out Dennis Degan's page on Flickr. I believe he works for NBC but he also has friends that work for other networks, and posts really cool behind-the-scenes photos.

 

Here are some of his photos from May when they converted the "GE Building" into the "Comcast Building":

 

 

 

And the removal of the famous Late Show marquee:

 

 

(He also has a lot of photos from inside the studios.)

huh? when did this happen? I thought it still was the GE building! lol It took a long time to get used to that from the RCA bldg.

^ Yes, and New Amsterdam is now New York City.

 

[the implication is that you're old. The humor arises from the fact that I referred to an historical event occurring over 350 years ago]

^ Yes, and New Amsterdam is now New York City.

 

[the implication is that you're old. The humor arises from the fact that I referred to an historical event occurring over 350 years ago]

 

very funny. but it's actually Nieuw Amsterdam.

Grace Church, Broadway & E 10th St.

New marquee for Colbert's Late Show is pretty awesome:

 

Yeah that is really sweet

Chase Manhattan Plaza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Public Theater on Lafayette St.

A three-year renovation & cleaning of St. Patrick's Cathedral has been completed just ahead of Pope Francis' NYC visit later this week.  More info about this renovation project and 13 photos of the renovated St. Patrick's Cathedral at the link below:

 

St. Patrick's Cathedral renovated space ready for Pope, New Yorkers: http://www.amny.com/news/st-patrick-s-cathedral-renovations-ready-for-pope-francis-visit-to-new-york-city-1.10826155

 

George Bellows house, E. 19th St.

 

 

 

^ Yes, and New Amsterdam is now New York City.

 

[the implication is that you're old. The humor arises from the fact that I referred to an historical event occurring over 350 years ago]

 

very funny. but it's actually Nieuw Amsterdam.

 

 

not according to elvis costello.

 

and in 1980 he had had about enough of it!

 

 

A three-year renovation & cleaning of St. Patrick's Cathedral has been completed just ahead of Pope Francis' NYC visit later this week.  More info about this renovation project and 13 photos of the renovated St. Patrick's Cathedral at the link below:

 

St. Patrick's Cathedral renovated space ready for Pope, New Yorkers: http://www.amny.com/news/st-patrick-s-cathedral-renovations-ready-for-pope-francis-visit-to-new-york-city-1.10826155

 

some shots taken during yesterday's Pulaski Day Parade. It looks sensational. I don't think I've ever seen it this clean.

 

 

 

 

It's so white it almost looks like it's glowing!

very spiffy! at the expense of the other parishes around town unfortunately.

Wow St. Patricks is stunning, only topped by Dominican girls during their parade in NYC :)

^ haha yeah for sure, but i think even that is topped by the labor day carribean parade!

I've always loved this building, seemingly out of place in the Garment District on 8th Ave & 38th St. I can't pinpoint the architectural style (not that I'm any sort of expert) and it looks to be a residential dwelling, judging by the less-than-upscale "window treatments." (Even mine don't look that bad!). btw the dollar-a-slice pizza place, with locations all over NYC, isn't half bad.

 

 

^ yeah that one's great. there are a lot of interesting old survivor bldgs around that neighborhood. the area is somewhat of a last stand for the old days ny vibe. how long they can they hold out before they get knocked out for bland residential towers? and ditto for the small wholesale businesses? yet somehow many small old bldgs like that one are still there. and somehow even the flower district hangs on. for now.

One bit of good news is that lots of the recent residential towers in MN have used the excess development rights from old, 19th century commercial walkups, taking away most of the incentive to demo a lot of those older buildings. They could still be knocked down someday, but if you can't build anything bigger, the upside is a lot lower. Being filled with rent-regulated tenants also helps.

 

And i'm guessing that awesome Garment Dist. walk-up is safe for now. The lot line windows of the adjacent building probably mean there's an air rights easement above it. That one is a real beaut'.  I love that heavy cornice.

One bit of good news is that lots of the recent residential towers in MN have used the excess development rights from old, 19th century commercial walkups, taking away most of the incentive to demo a lot of those older buildings. They could still be knocked down someday, but if you can't build anything bigger, the upside is a lot lower. Being filled with rent-regulated tenants also helps.

 

mn? i take you meant nyc yes?

 

actually, unfortunately that neighborhood has the most available air rights in all of manhattan:

 

http://www.mas.org/urbanplanning/accidental-skyline/

 

 

 

 

And i'm guessing that awesome Garment Dist. walk-up is safe for now. The lot line windows of the adjacent building probably mean there's an air rights easement above it. That one is a real beaut'.  I love that heavy cornice.

 

it would certainly seem so, but again unfortunately i don't think so. if im looking at the correct corner on the air rights map above it has available air rights. of course thats not the only factor, as you alluded to, but it is the most important and so not a good sign.  :-(

 

just as an example, we have had several, yes several (!) 1830s-ish federal style bldgs torn down just in our neighborhood along 8th ave over the years -- many of these developers are outright ruthless.  :whip:

MN = Manhattan. There's far less development rights transfer activity outside of Manhattan, so unfortunately my silver lining doesn't apply much in the other boroughs.

 

The MAS air rights map doesn't track past air rights transfers and easements, so can't really be used to understand specific sites (I have personal familiarity with their data and process). I didn't mean to suggest that there aren't a lot of tear down opportunities left--there definitely are--just that lots of those old walk-ups will be sticking around for a long time. Especially the ones that are adjacent to shiny new towers.

 

EDIT: just to tie this to the Standard Building in CLE, the give-away that a developer bought the development rights and easement from an old walk-up is the presence of lot line windows in the shiny new tower. So, for example this guy on third ave (one the falling crane buildings from about 2006): https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7325894,-73.9876845,3a,75y,0.01h,100.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smT3WaeWLsA5_0yhKneZYgg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656  The Brazen Fox bldg isn't going anywhere for a long while. Can't build anything bigger there now.

i don't understand, those are the available air rights and varying degrees of what is left of them, are they not? are you saying its inaccurate for some reason and that despite what the map shows evd's bldg and the rest could possibly not have air rights available that they could sell off or build on? if so, what good is the map? i see it used as gospel from time to time on the blogs.

^That map shows this and nothing more than this: [tax lot area (as estimated in a DCP data set)] x [estimate of permitted FAR on that tax lot] - [estimate of existing building area on that tax lot]. I know with complete certainty it does not take into account past development rights transfers and air rights easements, and its formula is extremely simple (by necessity) so doesn't capture lots of the practical limitations imposed by NYC zoning beyond FAR. No one should ever treat it as gospel for a particular lot.

 

The only way to know what's going on for a particular site is to do a title search and, depending what you're trying to figure out, a zoning analysis. In the case of that building EVD photographed, you can't even do a title search on-line, because the easement would have been granted in the 1920s, which is too old to be on ACRIS. From looking at it, though, I would guess the owner refused to sell to the developers of the Shampan building, which is why it is wrapped on two sides by it. It's likely the owners did, however, sell a light and air easement, which is why the Shampan building is lined with windows overlooking that air space. It's possible the little building still owns it's unused development rights, but they couldn't be used on-site, given the easement.

It's disgraceful what landlords and developers get away with!

^Hideous, but still better than tearing down the original building.

^ haha yeah for sure, but i think even that is topped by the labor day carribean parade!

 

:)

St. Jean Baptiste Church 76th & Lexington

Chase Manhattan Plaza

 

 

Love this shot.  70 Pine would be a dominant building anywhere else in the world, on Manhattan it's almost an afterthought.

Is smoking permitted in Catholic churches? Church of St. John Nepomucene, 1st Ave & 66th St.

thats a crack pipe, he's just trying to get closer to god

Some scenes from around the area of Gramercy Park (obviously taken during different seasons  :-))

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skyline from Madison Square--

 

 

Love that last shot, Flatiron contrasted with new "twin towers" and especially that screen.

this is my new house, the former home of Andrew Carnegie. If only I could find a way to evict its current tenant, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, 5th Ave. & 91st St--

 

Across the street is the Church of the Heavenly Rest, 5th Ave. & 90th St.

St. Anthony of Padua, Sullivan & W. Houston Sts

 

 

 

 

^  Wow. 

 

I suppose one could be a smartass about the amount of bread that this place's budget could have bought, but if you don't go for excellence sometimes then what's the point?

It's been awhile since I had walked down Avenue B. I was rendered speechless by this sight. Aren't there ordinances against painting a building like this (surely on the Upper East Side!)?

 

 

 

I really like those window screens that all fan in the same direction.  It's like they made them reversible so that you could do a symmetrical pattern across a building, but they all just put them on in the same direction. 

That's in the East Village it says, I would not think such was that unusual there.

Xavier High School on W. 16th St, alma mater of Antonin Scalia

the other night while walking down 15th St. I actually passed a new building that looks decent. This is clearly one of those places affordable to only, say, "the 5%," but looks it good, so if you're going to heartlessly displace the little people (like me) at the very least do it with some flair--

 

 

 

Those odd-shaped stones certainly look expensive, but with computer-controlled stuff there's probably no skilled effort involved.  There would just be a lot of waste.  Unless you were super-clever and made it so the "wasted" stonework is actually incorporated into the design somewhere. 

If it's manmade stone, which it appears to be, that waste is recycled. Lots of construction waste doesn't benefit anyone involved in the process, including the manufacturer.

The church I went to 1,000 times as a kid was rebuilt during the energy crisis with zero windows except for about a dozen stained-glass windows that were in goofy funhouse parallelogram-shaped insets just like this, except the material was stucco with a heavy texture sort of like a popcorn ceiling.  The same idea looks a lot better with this stone. 

^ umm yeah no doubt -- and the  last thing the people who live there will have to worry about is energy costs.

 

my doctor's office was across the street from this, so i watched it being built. it has taken seemingly forever. in the meantime, the doctors went to prison for in some scam for getting kickbacks from their blood lab people in nj. i'm kind of amazed anyone actually gets caught for stuff like that, but the fbi took down the lab and like 50 area doctors for it.

This building stands out surprisingly well when looking at aerials from WTC1 looking north. In a sea of brick and limestone you see that slanted glass wall and your eye is immediately drawn to it. It's definitely a good looking building. The windows are a tad wonky for my personal taste, but I get what they're doing so I can respect it.

 

 

Talking about buildings that stand out...

 

It's been awhile since I had walked down Avenue B. I was rendered speechless by this sight. Aren't there ordinances against painting a building like this (surely on the Upper East Side!)?

 

 

 

 

I have no clue as to why, but I love this building's color scheme.

A new skyscraper called One Vanderbilt is planned for the corner of 42nd & Vanderbilt in Midtown. Here's what was there before:

 

 

Here's what the block looks like now:

 

^ here are a couple shot of that indistinctive block coming down that i took this past spring:

 

 

 

 

 

this is a bit earlier and the angle is from 43st/5th ave -- all that black netting was quite a sight

my spouse has a co-worker friend who's family ran a popular irish tavern there, i hope they made out well!

 

 

 

 

per the renders one vanderbilt is an odd bldg, it seems great at the base and weak at the top, but it will be impressive and a grand improvement.

^as of Sunday