A Fight on New York’s Skyline

**wolverine** · September-11-10, 07:48 PM

A couple years ago I walked past the old General Motors building in NYC. A nice, but fairly generic building, the facade was being reclad in glass to improve the buildings image. [[which in my opinion made it worse) Well, apparently it's not really working out to increase occupancy. The glass recladding will continue to completion, but once it's done the bulding will likely be demolished entirely for a new tower with a nordstrom and residential on top.

curbed.com

They are still marketing the building
http://www.3columbuscircle.com/

....that will likely end facing the wrecking ball....

**Gyro** · September-11-10, 08:26 PM

I love everything from Gothic churches to Richardson Romanesque buildings, but I also think the dramatic Dubai architecture is elegant, beautiful and modern! They are an iconic expression of the wealth of Dubai, not unlike the pyramids of Giza were for the Pharaohs and the Ford Rotunda was for the auto industry.

It's appropriate that New York gets an unimpressive, conventional building. America's empire, which gave rise to the Empire State building, is on the wane. It's so last century like the buildings in Detroit.

**Gyro** · September-11-10, 08:34 PM

One Detroit Center is a nice building from a distance, but at ground level by the walk-through, it has fake plastic Greek columns hiding the structural steel. Grotesque! It's like grafting an elephant's trunk onto a mouse. Shame on someone.