this is an odd sight. it's a real wheatfield on an original lot in battery park city (1982):

 

 

 

 

 

bonus:

 

the original site of battery park city was a row of city piers (1950's)

 

 

and finally, here is an original rendering for bpc (1960's) --- brutal !!!

 

 

 

some bpc history from the same blog:

 

Battery Park City: a history

 

Throughout the 1960’s and early 70’s, New Yorkers were wrapped in debate as to what would become of the remnants of their once booming shipping industry, a series of 20 collapsing and unsightly piers on the southwestern coast of Manhattan. Ultimately it was decided that this area would be buried in landfill and used as a foundation for a mixed-use residential and commercial site, 60% of which would come to be taken from the footprint of the World Trade Center.

 

The Battery Park area was originally conceived under Governor Rockefeller, as two incarnations (1962 & 1966) of a futuristic, multi-level city consisting of residential housing interwoven with open space. Rimmed by an industrial esplanade and elevated above transportation functions, the area would include some cargo and shipping areas and incorporate public housing supported by public services. This plan was not however well received by either investors or the public as shipping was felt to be outmoded in lower Manhattan, regardless of its format; additionally, the concepts of public housing and modernism that had guided urban renewal were already coming to be considered outmoded.

 

The Battery Park City Authority was created to oversee the process of the plan’s creation in 1968. Though a master plan was approved in 1969, its execution was permanently halted when the fiscal crisis and recession of ‘73 rendered the prospect of funding all but impossible.

 

Ultimately the plan that best resembles Battery Park as it exists today was adopted in 1979. After two decades of costly planning, the Urban Development Corporation halted the project after the plans were finalized, and transferred title of the land to the Battery Park City Authority, in the hopes that privatizing the project would hasten its execution, and lessen its expense.

 

Battery Park City would finally be divided into parcels and offered to developers for lease and development, rather than being conceived and executed in its entirety, as was planned even until the penultimate master plan of 1969.

 

As land ownership remains in the hands of the BPCA, owner occupied developments in the area are typically “land lease” buildings in which the ownership pays to lease the underlying land. Carrying costs in this breed of building are typically higher on a per square foot basis, due to both the escalating cost of carrying such a lease, and the comparative lack of underlying tax-deductibility. (The BPCA donates a large portion of the profit generated by Battery Park City to the New York Department of Housing; during 2004 this amounted to approximately 101 Million dollars.)

 

Today Battery Park City contains 9.3 million square feet of commercial space, 7.2 million square feet of residential space (housing 9,000 residents), and 35-acres of park land. Most recently, it has become home to the country’s first sustainable building, a rental building named the Solaire: four more similar buildings are planned for the area.

 

link:

http://www.realgotham.com/2006/04/20/battery-park-city-the-history/

 

 

That's a really interesting photo!  Are we sure it's not the edge of Manhattan, Kansas? :wink:

 

 

 

Although I agree it would have been "brutal" if they actually built this, I kind of admire it. It's an unapologetic open-armed embrace of a Jetsons inspired vision of the future. There's something very optimistic about that, like flying cars and robot maids were literally just around the corner, so let's build a city to reflect our future. Thank God they never built it though, since I still don't have a flying car and the closest thing to a robot maid is the Roomba.

 

^hehe -- yeah.

 

besides the jetsons, that concrete promenade reminds me of century city in la (that was used to great effect in the cool movie "conquest of the planet of the apes"). the connected towers look kind of like two versions of what became the pan-am building behind grand central.

Hey everybody REAL GOTHAM TEAM here our site structure changed so I just wanted to give you the updated URL!

 

http://www.realgotham.com/2006/04/battery_park_city_a_history.html

 

Thanks,

 

RGotham

^links are now fixed.

 

thx for checking us out realgotham crew!