[Old-look No. 137 from April 2014]
After nearly a year of building-wide renovations that saw the addition of an extra floor at 137 Avenue C, workers this week removed the construction netting from the new-look structure, as EVG regular Dave on 7th tells us …
And now!
… and some views from East Ninth Street and La Plaza…
For awhile the site seemed to be some kind of construction miracle, with the remains of the building — just the north wall and some joists — held up by some scaffolding and not much else.
Thoughts on the new building? (The old version did have a bit of a lean to it.)
Approved DOB permits show one residential unit (condo?) on each floor… with a ground-floor retail tenant. The DOB lists Ramy Issac, no stranger to the East Village, as the architect of record.
As for the retail space, we understand that a bar-restaurant of some sort is in the works. (The applicant withdrew from the November 2014 CB3/SLA licensing meeting.) The building's ground-floor was home to drunker-brunch hotspot Sunburnt Cow until April 2014.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Renovations in store for 137 Avenue C, home to the Sunburnt Cow
The Sunburnt Cow closes for good at the end of this month
137 Avenue C, hollow on the inside
137 Avenue C — still standing!
137 Avenue C getting its extra floor
We lost some serious aesthetics. What is it with builders, architects, etc. these days, especially the low-rent concept of building that is popular on the LES. It's beyond cutting corners -- it's hideous.
ReplyDeleteThese turn-of-the-century buildings are just, well, better in every way, except possibly materials. (But that, too, may be a misconception in the end.)
Modern architecture is characterized by what I call architectural brutalism. Ugly glass towers are the archetype. The two at Astor Place are prime examples. There is a particularly ugly one a few blocks south of Houston St. on the lower east side. It looks like a giant finger. The new one on Ave. C is architectural brutalism light.
ReplyDeleteThe question I have is why do architects and builders do this?
Bill, opponent of architectural brutalismo
Bill, Most of your questions, and assertions for that matter, come from a lack of understanding of capitalism.
ReplyDeleteHow can something so incredibly dull be so dramatically hideous. I literally gasped followed by a big sigh when I looked at the first picture. It takes a lot of talent to make something minimalistic beautiful, this architect lacks talent. Even on a shoe string budget a talented architect could have done something better than this immediate eyesore.
ReplyDeleteBlech. The original building might have leaned a bit (I do too, and I'm nowhere near as old), but I'd still take it over this Thorosealed-to-the-max featureless mess any day. My kingdom for some architectural imagination.
ReplyDeleteWhat are those things hanging off the front of the building?
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 8:00
ReplyDeleteBwahahahahaha!
@ Anon 8:47AM
ReplyDeleteacai bowl holders
Hey, it's that Straight Gulag Island style.....DEEEE-LISH!
ReplyDeleteFor questions above about "why?" the "deep" answer is in the German Bahaus (architectural) Movement in the late 19teens to early 1940s.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus
Their key belief was that "MASS PRODUCTION WAS RECONCILABLE WITH THE INDIVIDUAL SPIRIT."
This meant that ALL the old architectural rules
could be broken (fancy design elements, material choice, etc.) in favor of repeatable low(er) cost design/construction and resulting lifestyle changes.
Of course, many saw this as a formula that could be extended to ALL of societies activities, not just buildings. MUCH of the way our "modern" capitalist societies "work" are deeply-sourced in their ideas.....which were NOT meant for you or I. Elites had the intelligence, money and free spirits, so it was up to them to help their inferior, blind and dumb brethern live "correctly".
Welcome to your world.
Now.....go out there and FUCK-UP their ideas as much as you can.....it's what we've been trying to do since the 1950s.....NOT giving up just yet!
of
Good God that's ugly. No sense of proportion.
ReplyDeleteThe wall facing La Plaza garden is getting a big mural, so maybe that will help a little.
ReplyDeleteWow - that is offensively ugly. Just a big "fuck you" to the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI really don't see what's so bad about it.
ReplyDelete@8:47 Those are my new pedestrian seating areas! The bendy thing with the cement is on the way!
ReplyDeleteWow what a beautiful building.
ReplyDeleteI though the original building was pretty crummy, but jeez, this is hideous. Someone plant some fast-growing ivy to cover up this monstrosity.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 8:00 AM. You claim my questions show a lack of understanding of capitalism. In what way?
ReplyDeleteI have a degree in economics and have read many books on the subject.
I worked on Wall Street and follow markets. I am also a pro-capitalist libertarian. Any evidence that I don't understand capitalism?
Capitalism = free markets = anarchy
Bill
The back and the sides are ok, but the front is just awful looking. It's like downsized office building.
ReplyDeleteI really don't see what's so bad about gentrification either.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a mental institution or a psychiatric ward -- so fitting to those who will inhabit this.
Plus, architects, builders, developers, RE folks don't care about the aesthetics since this building will only be flipped in a few years.
Finally, Sumburnt Cow -- that sums up on the state of the new EV.
I'm confused. Is that supposed to be the middle finger on their right hand or is it the left? Also, will they put up a giant billboard on the roof that says "Fuck You East Village!" or will the giant middle finger of a building be the full extent of this latest assault on the dead art of architecture?
ReplyDelete"Wow what a beautiful building. "
ReplyDeleteThe equivalent of Don Rickles, Mr. Warmth, saying at any roast: “What a great night.” Here's hoping that you were being ironic.
Hideous. One thing I never understand about new buildings, why no windows on the north wall, especially facing a garden?
ReplyDeleteBill the Anarchist Fibbertarian wants no government intervention in anything, claims to have worked on Wall Street, is pro-capitalist, but he doesn't understand that this building is the direct result of capitalism and the free market the current housing market? But capitalism = free markets = anarchy? What??? If my head was spinning any faster my name would be Linda Blair and I would need an Exorcist.
ReplyDeleteSorry Bill, I don't believe you.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a halfway house - half way between a prison and a house.
ReplyDeleteIt looks perfectly fine. Is it anything to write home about? No, but it looked better than what it replaced. But, hey it's something that wasn't here pre-1995, so of course its somehow the most horrible thing to ever happen and clearly intended as a personal insult and insinuation that your significant other has been cheating.
ReplyDeleteWould you rather have houses built by the government planners, such as the crime-ridden projects on the east side of Ave. D that look like prisons and are paid for by the taxpayers?
ReplyDeleteTo say that an ugly building is the result of capitalism is like saying bad art is too, or bad food, a bad movie, etc. It's a meaningless statement. And the real estate market in the PR of NYC is hardly a purely free market, what with the government-issued permits required, taxes, etc.
IOW you don't have a clue.
Bill
Just. Butt.
ReplyDeleteI like you Bill.
ReplyDeleteYeah, okay, I'm sure it's hard to find construction workers with any craft in them and if you do, I'm sure they are expensive but . . . even the most minimal care will help a building like that. Just buying 50% bricks of one color and 50% bricks of another color and then alternating them will give the building at least a tiny bit of texture and in the context of the plainest brick buildings maybe a bit of character. How much could that possibly cost? There's the hassle of ordering two sets of bricks, maybe an extra 30 minutes and the hassle of laying this brick and then that brick but doing that shouldn't slow anything down and there's not the least bit of craft involved. Most of the recent buildings in our fair city make Ceausescu's Romania look like an architectural paradise.
ReplyDeleteDo you think anybody laid bricks one at a time? I can't really tell from the photo but I thought that the cheap building trade uses brick facing that comes in sheets. http://www.lowes.com/pd_473008-61777-4348010_1z0xzpo__?productId=50071593&pl=1
ReplyDeleteYet Another Anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"Is it anything to write home about? No, but it looked better than what it replaced."
The original building was definitely a half-assed construction job; I was in it a few times and saw that for one thing, the stairways were about two feet wide. There was no heat at all in the bathrooms—actually water closets—which is par for the course for a building that was probably built in the mid-nineteenth century.
However! the replacement is a piece of sh¡t; it may be ADA-compliant and earthquake-proof, but—to paraphrase Frank Lloyd Wright—I wish I could live in it just so I wouldn't have to look at it when I got up in the morning.
Bill - Saying the buildings on Ave D are "crime-ridden" is quite a bit of an overstatement, even for you.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine how depressing it must be to be an architect in NYC these days. Just turn off yr brain & give 'em what they want. I mean the developers must just hire these firms with the only criteria being - cheap as humanly possible, ensure the interiors are an exact copy of every other boxy, personality-less apt built in the last three yrs & oh yeah - everybody now - stainless steel appliances (the very embodiment of luxury). Now the marketing firms, they have all the fun weaving their, um, tales.
ReplyDeleteHaving a degree in Economics these days means you are good at model-building. It also means, when you don't get the results you want, you blame externalities, like regulations. It's not much different from having a degree in Theology.
ReplyDeleteI agree that lots of economics is garbage, but not the free-market Austrian school. The only good regulation is a dead regulation. Ever heard of the rule of (common) law? See Lysander Spooner's great quote on statute law.
ReplyDeleteBill, quoting Benjamin R. Tucker: "The world's population is gradually dividing into two types--Anarchists and criminals."
So, channeling my inner Clint Eastwood, ask yourself a question....punk....are you or are you not an anarchist?
Which is to say, or you or are you not a criminal?
Seems the Stalin School of Architecture is making a name for itself. The building 277 east 7th is still the ugliest. As long as the criminals on community board 3 get their envelope full of money for their vote, that's what really matters.
ReplyDelete