In the News: Brookfield Place Lobby Redo Includes a New Restaurant

••• Brookfield Place news: “A radical redesign [is] planned for the lobby and exterior of 200 Liberty Street […] A sizeable portion of the lobby’s public space would be closed off for a 4,000- to 5,000-square-foot restaurant that opens onto West Street and a patio of outdoor seating. Space for a potential retail tenant also will be created in a walled-off part of what now is the West Street side of the lobby. The West Street entrance […] would be removed.” There are renderings. —Tribeca Trib

••• Pascaline Lepeltier, “the sommelier and a partner in Racines NY in Tribeca, made it to the final round in the biennial French competition for the best sommelier. And last week she took home the top prize, the title of Best Sommelier in France, the first woman to win it.” —New York Times

••• You can now buy the ceramics that Masa Takayama uses at his restaurants, including, presumably, Tetsu. —Eater

••• Now open: Gucci’s bookstore in Soho, stocked by Dashwood Books. (Photo by Pablo Enriquez courtesy Gucci Wooster Bookstore.) —The Cut

 

5 Comments

  1. The Brookfield Place “redo” looks to me like a “re-please-don’t”. It ruins the grandeur and beauty of the space, by obliterating the elements which made it distinctive: the stairway and the dome. The end result looks like absolutely generic corporate/shoppingmall in Nowhere, USA. Very sad that effort (and surely substantial expense) is actually expended on making places uglier.

    Quote: “modernizing the space was necessary to keep its tenants”

    First, it’s not obvious (to me, at least) that the new result is any more “modern”. Why couldn’t “modernization” be accomplished while retaining the architecturally beautiful elements?

    I remember walking through this space on many occasions and marveling with others at its surprising beauty. It was a rare inspiring place in the bland corporate landscape. It was a place one would want to linger. The “redo”, on the other hand, is a space I would just want to rush through as quickly as possible, or avoid.

    • I’m not sure if you’re mistaking this area with the “main part” in front of le district, because I’ve personally never even walked through this part before. And I don’t really know of many people that do, unless they work in the building.

      • It certainly looks like the spot I was thinking of…But it was years ago when I was last there and perhaps my mind is just gone. If so, I retract my nostalgia trips…but not my concern about why covering up the dome and losing the stairs makes this more ‘modern’.

    • Rant on totally the wrong spot.

      Anything else you want to contribute Marcus?

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