Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Designs for new Bowery hotel unleashed; local blogger mutters something about cotton balls

Just last week reports surfaced that France’s Louzon Group has acquired the former Salvation Army building on the Bowery for $7.6 million and plans to turn it into a 65-room boutique hotel with one of their restaurants on the ground floor.



And now, Curbed has the design. Please be seated.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like they knocked that one up in Minecraft

Lisa said...

Oh dear God. What is it with this endless stream of first-year architecture students subjecting this poor neighborhood to "edgy" (read: hideous)buildings? So this is how those Frogs repay us for liberating them from their Nazi overlords? Miserable weasels! (Yeah I know, insult to weasels. Sorry.)

Cookiepuss said...

Both of these images horrify me! The skinny structure every time I see it, either in person or in a photograph brings me all the way back to points in my life where I experienced trauma. Both structures mimic the symmetry of Hitler's army. Sometimes I think that architects and developers are trying to create a new and superior race!

Marty Wombacher said...

Now, is the time on Sprockets where we say: "Huh?"

Bowery Boogie said...

hello again, meatpacking district. you've overstayed your welcome on the Bowery.

Anonymous said...

Cue complaints about ruining the neighborhood and what-not. Oh wait, looks like some got here early.

Bowery Boy said...

The merits of each individual hotel on the new Bowery can be debated, but taken as a whole, this is about to be the worst stretch of Manhattan ever planned. Ok, maybe not planned, but developed. It looked better as Skid Row. The individual developers are getting their money, so they don't care, but one-by-one they are turning the Bowery into an architectual freak show. So sad.

Anonymous said...

I started lining up here at 6 a.m. to complain!

Lisa said...

@Anon 3:32 - If you don't like complaints then you need to be on a blog devoted to cute puppies 'n kittens, not on one devoted to the (mostly unwelcome to its readers) changes taking place in the East Village and surrounding environs. This is a forum for us to vent and bitch. And you can't seriously suggest you find that monstrosity attractive, especially in the context of all the other awful buildings on that stretch of the Bowery, can you?

@Marty and Bowery Boogie - Hah! Perfect!

cvinzant said...

Does anyone know what those ridiculous white boxes are that jut out for no purpose? Are they made of stone? Metal? How much will the pigeons enjoy roosting on them?

blue glass said...

looks like the original "patchwork pajama pants" design of the building on astor place (owned by cooper union) that now has curves and houses a chase on the ground floor.
what are those things pushing out of the building? beams that the architect did not know what to do with and didn't realize s/he had arrived at the edge of the building? give us a break.
yes skid row looked better, as did the "slums" of the lower east side.
architects knew how to build then. painters knew how to draw. and musicians could read music.
this is awful!

EV Grieve said...

@cvinzant

At first glance, it looked as if someone randomly stuck cotton balls all over the design. Hence the dumb headline.

Anonymous said...

The horror...
-H

Jill said...

I just need to point out that the new construction that has had the highest sale per square foot was on the UWS (or near Columbus Circle) was built in the "prewar" style with bricks and classic detailing, I think within the last 7-8 years. I wish I could remember the name of the building to provide a link, but the fact that it surprised everybody with the high prices and fast sales stays with me.

------m said...

SOMEONE TELL ME THIS DESIGN IS A JOKE!!

Crazy Eddie said...

I roomed with three architect majors in college so some of their insight (not their talent) rubbed off on me. This current spate of Bowery buildings is a horror show.

Also, please do not bring up the example of the Guggenheim as an example of how new architecture, controversial in its day, can now fit in with the old. None of these designers could wipe the ass of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Anonymous said...

Now I can't stop thinking about the Stay Puft Marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.

glamma said...

@Jill - same for Parl Slope, I think the Richard Meyer building (sp).

Jean S said...

The Bowery has become a magnet for monstrosities posing as buildings. Is this what the Department of City Planning had in mind when they said that the east side of the Bowery was ripe for development? The destruction of the historical and cultural context of the community.

Unknown said...

Looks like the original "patchwork pajama pants" design of the building on astor place (owned by cooper union) that now has curves and houses a chase on the ground floor.
Hotel Design