Above, the guest suite of Rush Limbaugh’s Fifth Avenue Penthouse, which is now for sale for $13.95 million. The rest of the penthouse is similarly awash in murals, cherubs, and hand-painted gold leaf. I’d hate to own the place when tastes change (or have they already?)…
Via NPR’s Wait wait…don’t blog me!
Image courtesy of Gawker.
Apart from delivering the welcome news that Manhattan’s West-Park Presbyterian Church was recently awarded landmark status, ArchPaper’s review about how the building averted demolition also alludes to a interesting - but by no means unprecedented - strategy for generating public support to destroy (inconveniently) historic structures.
Back in 2003 (before being landmarked), the West-Park congregation proposed replacing the 1880s church [...]
Lincoln Center is not a landmark - at least by designation. Most would agree that it is a landmark of some sort - if not architecturally, certainly for its cultural impact. And yet, despite concerted (and well-founded) efforts made by groups like DOCOMOMO and folks like Andrew S. Dolkart, the city and state have opted [...]
A major downside to being a developer is the disreputable-by-association factor. Practically every community can point to at least one developer-led project that failed to live up to promises preceding construction and as a result, developers tend to be the lowest hanging fruit among local figures susceptible to criticism.
Reputable developers, feel free to blame the [...]
What does CityCenter have to say about Ground Zero? In an interview with Bloomberg architecture critic James O. Russell, James Murren noted how his approach to developing CityCenter was influenced by the design competition that preceded the quagmire at Ground Zero. But the intrepid CEO of MGM Mirage, co-owner of CityCenter with Dubai World, could have [...]
Manhattan’s Silverstein Properties could not have picked a better playground than the one it bought for a park next to a couple of its new development projects. Rather than installing a run-of-the-mill plastic playground, the developer bought Playground, a bronze Tom Otterness sculpture completed for a private party in 2007.
Tom Otterness’ work is consistently whimsical, [...]
Saving an old, dilapidated building from the wrecking ball can be challenging - especially if you are not its owner and if local leaders, blinded by opportunistic developers, fail to comprehend its significance. Even if you succeed in thwarting its demolition, there is always the tricky issue of how to make the building’s preservation more [...]
Ever since Goldman Sachs opted to build its own Manhattan office building instead of leasing space in the Freedom Tower, there has been a continual stream of unfortunate press coverage relating to construction at 200 West Street, coverage which has amazingly not included commentary on the rising tower’s somewhat bland, “corporate” appearance.
The design might have been [...]
American history is as much a story of real estate development as it is of cultural integration or political innovation - unfortunately, our history is by extension, one of corruption as well. While the American Dream was certainly enough motivation for the majority of Americans to create their own patch of heaven, there were others [...]
So much for being excited about the construction of another Manhattan landmark. Three years ago, architect Lord Norman Foster revealed renderings of two slender, elliptical towers that would rise 30-stories above Walker & Poor’s original, squat, limestone building at 980 Madison Avenue. Although it was less adventurous than Foster’s brilliantly executed Hearst Tower, which rises [...]