Oops, crap. Wrong image. Sorry! Here it is!
Sorry! Blogger is giving me problems today!
This likely isn't surprising, but no one seems to like the design... or the thought of another hotel along here...
Here's a sampling of Curbed comments:
And people thought the Bowery was bad in the "old days"? I'd take the Salvation Army building over this any day.
Pretty much everything new going up on the Bowery now says "crap-tastic" + "major ego at work". This new building looks like the winner of a contest where crazed architects are asked to design their weirdest fantasy buildings.
Eventually the Bowery will have a NEW reputation, as the place tourists can go to see the absolutely *ugliest* collection of buildings in NYC.
And!
Odd to think that the Bowery was actually better and had a peculiar, if worn and gritty, charm before qualified "designers" took it upon themselves to show the uneducated masses how things might be. As it stands, they should rename it the Rue de Pretension.
Gothamist ran a post with a headline, "The Bowery's Next Hotel Is Looking Pretty Ugly." Per commenter Newhce: "Holy crap. What is this, 'New Brutalism'"?
Runnin' Scared went with the headline, "New Bowery Hotel Uglier Than The Last."
And at EV Grieve? Here's a sampling of the comments:
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!
And!
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.
And!
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?
And on the EV Grieve Facebook page, Luc Sante left this comment:
It would be cheaper and more useful just to blow up the building and leave a 30-foot crater.
Meanwhile, I've taken it upon myself to make a few suggested changes... Work in progress people...
looks like emergency air bags popping out of every window
ReplyDeletethis is a joke, right?
ReplyDeleteBoy Bloomberg really fucked us up royally. We all voted him in and trusted him in the wake of 9/11. I voted for him because he said he was going to create affordable housing. He didn't say that he wasn't going to create luxury housing, as well as turn the Lower East Side into a tourist destination and place for the dumb mega rich.
ReplyDeleteBoy his true colors are really shining through. MAJORITY RULE!
Hahahahahahaha! Awesome build-up, Grieve!
ReplyDeletethe skinny building is so sneaky the way it's set back on the side street like that
ReplyDeleteas if we haven't noticed that they've forced themselves on us
who knows maybe the demolition and construction will be so bad that the skinny will malfunction into a perpetual state of ejaculation and then where will we be
the suburbs have turned our neighborhood into a drunken, loud freakshow.
ReplyDeletenow our buildings will also qualify.
Those pimples look like falling air-conditioners.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for the whole stretch to be so over-saturated with hotels, they'll have to become SROs once again...
good thought goggla except these new sros won't be for the traditional "homeless".
ReplyDeletehousing has gotten so expensive that there will be all these new middle class "homeless" folks that will happily live in the converted hotel/sros.
they will have a/c, a private bath etc. will the city also provide maid and room service?
ha ha!
ReplyDeleteThey would probably have to call in the National Guard if that happened cookiepuss but it could happen, and then we would have to wait a good year for the feds to find the right equipment to stop it.
This one would make a good Covenant House Goggla!
ReplyDeleteBetween this eyesore and whatever size hotel gets built at 35 Cooper Sq., (and the Whitehouse once it falls down) it is a good question to ask just how many hotels can be supported on this stretch. That new Astor Place is really gonna have to be something special for the tourists, or in a decade the Bowery will be back to its old days, only higher.
ReplyDeleteThe old Bowery -- of 2005
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/bowery/bowery.html
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/newbowery/newbowery.html
Thanks Kevin! It all happened so fast.
ReplyDeleteCommunity Board members Dominic Pisciotta, CB3 Chair and co-op member, and former Chair David McWater are pushing for gentrification in Seward Park. They claim that their plan is the only way that anything will happen on the site. I say bullshit!
ReplyDeletePlease read this great article by Joel Feingold of GOLES in todays East Villager. Contact GOLES at (212) 358-1231 or by e-mail at info@goles.org and ask them how best to support their proposal to ensure that affordable housing is built on this site, small businesses are opened on this site and to preserve the historic Essex Street Market.
No compromises! What ever decision is made must be a unanimous vote. McWater, Pisciotta and the rest of CB3 should stand with the people. Seward park was developed for the people and must be returned to the people.
ReplyDeleteTHE PEOPLE UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!