In the News: Goldman Alley Reviewed

June 5, 2012 Arts & Culture, Real Estate

••• The New York Times‘s architecture critic has at least a triple orgasm gets a remarkable amount of pleasure from the glass canopy over Goldman Alley—officially known as North End Way, according to the review—calling it “one of the best new works of architecture in New York,” and it “formally elevates what is really just a gap between two buildings into something almost as inspired as the nave of a great Gothic cathedral,” and being under it is akin to “walking through Richard Serra’s torqued ellipses.” Gonna have to take another look! I do wonder whether it’s true that “everyone gawks at the canopy.”

••• T Magazine has an article about Museum, the whimsical display in Cortlandt Alley. Of note: The “celebrity guest” at the opening was “Rudolph W. Guliani, a celebrity impostor of the former mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani.”

••• A Wall Street Journal columnist continues to whine about not being included at a ceremony at One World Trade Center, devoting half of a column about the basement of Four World Financial Center—the buildings are cooled by river water, which is kind of neat, if not for the fish (including seahorses, which really should be the next unicorn-like Internet meme) that get caught in process—to his bitching.

••• A deeper look at architect Shigeru Ban’s proposed plans for the two-story topper at 361 Broadway. UPDATE: Landmarks approved it. —Curbed

••• Edie Falco has listed her Tribeca apartment. —Celebuzz

 
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3 Comments

  1. Andrea
    June 6, 2012 • 8:12 am

    I had the same reaction after reading the NYT piece about the glass canopy. It put me in mind of the phrase “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” This writer found a way to dance and I guess it does deserve another look. I guess I’m in too much of a hurry to either get my burger, see the movie or gawk at the stunning Conrad hotel lobby.

  2. neeta
    June 6, 2012 • 12:05 pm

    The cynic in me made we wonder if that writer got a pay off for that review. It was a little over the top. In a vacuum, I guess that canopy is interesting, but I use that walkway many times a day and have never been struck by it’s apparent magnificence. The canopy creates a perpetual overcast, making that space more dim uninviting alley than pedestrian boulevard. The canopy should have provided sun starved NYers with more light.

  3. Hudson River
    June 6, 2012 • 4:50 pm

    Well, I gawk at it. I always look up when entering, and appreciate how they got the triangles to fit together, and wonder why they teased us by not putting another triangle into that left-over end space on the Vesey Street side. I love the feeling of walking thru such a narrow long space that feels so vertical at the same time and seeing all the people hanging out there, in what used to be a crappy little passageway that everybody hurried through. Now it’s the Galleria in Milan or one of those passageways in Paris or Brussels. I feel grateful being able to walk thru it when it’s raining. I think it truly is a special kind of space, something that William H. Whyte (“The Social LIfe of Small Urban Spaces”) is looking down at and smiling because somebody “got it.” I was delighted to see the Times article on the first page of the Arts section, and agree that good architecture can be small as well as monumental, and this is really really good and I’m glad it’s in my nabe so I can walk thru it frequently.

    Now if they would please get rid of the smokers and bikers, it would be perfect.