Ugliest Buildings in New York City

[Viktorkrum77]

Do most New Yorkers still despise the Met Life building (formerly Pan Am building)? Is it still, to date, the most hated building in New York City?

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

[MidtownGuy]

We've got newcomers that are much worse to steal our ire. I particularly hate the Atlas, the ugly new Marriott next to Bryant Square Park, 6-12 Barclay, and just about all of the new buildings around the far end of West 42nd.

[OmegaNYC]

I don't hate the building. I think it is one of the best flat-top building in the city. It is right next to the GE Building, IMO.

[kliq6]

Marriot 39th and 6th, my opinion the ugliest and most wasted prime site out there

[NoyokA]

I've never hated the Metlife Building.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Ditto.

[MikeW]

They should restart the helicopter service from it's roof to JFK.

[NYguy]

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

Right now, I'm very unhappy with the NY Times tower. And it seems to have frozen in space & time, no sign of anything to change my mind about it. One of the worst to go up, made worse because its a very prominent tower.

As far as the Met Life (still Pan Am to me), I've always liked it, mainly because of the way it straddles Park Avenue. And it's always been a buddy to the Chrysler. Put it on 6th Ave, and I like it less.


http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2079215/2112767/2127613/051017_arch_metlifeEX.jpg


http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/usb/misc/n/nya/detail/graphicny671029.jpg


http://www.mld.co.jp/photo/townscape/nyc/ny90-1.jpg

[lesterp4]

I for one love the Met Life building. For me it represents days gone by when New York was truly a place that encouraged prople to dream and be what they wanted to be. I don't think there is any room for that now. I aslo think when it was Pan Am it represented the international nature of NYC. I think the building I hate now is that ugly senior housing on 42nd street between 10th and 11th aves.

[Punzie]

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

Is this just for Manhattan, or can the other 4 boroughs join?

I, too, always liked the PanAm building.

[212]

Pam Am's signage was much more elegant than MetLife's, but I still like the building.

My most despised: the huge, blank, nearly windowless Verizon tower by the Brooklyn Bridge.
Close second: a similar Verizon atrocity on Tenth Avenue in Clinton.

[lbjefferies]

I love the Pan Am building. It is one of my favorite New York skyscrapers. And it's great in spite of the fact that there are two massive, horrible Park Avenue boxes flanking either side just to the north and preventing it from having the breathing room it deserves. I think they are occupied by Chase and JPMorgan and they are two of my least favorite towers in New York. Where were the NIMBYs when these POSs went up.

But no building in all of New York is as bad as the apartment building across from Lincoln Center. It actually makes me angry when i look at it.

[Viktorkrum77]

Is this just for Manhattan, or can the other 4 boroughs join?

I, too, always liked the PanAm building.

I suppose there's no harm, but the building should at least qualify as a skyscraper, or be higher than around 20 stories or so.

[ablarc]

But no building in all of New York is as bad as the apartment building across from Lincoln Center. It actually makes me angry when i look at it.
YES!! The one with the stupid angle. That one makes me mad too. It's right up there with Downtown's J.P. Morgan Building by Roche/Dinkeloo. Ugly as sin.

Pan Am is terrific. Too bad about the helicopters; too bad about the logo. But still terrific.

Nice they restored the lobby to its former plainness --although it would be nice to get some of the Bauhaus artwork back (some of it was so utilitarian that folks didn't even know it was art).

[ZippyTheChimp]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg

You can't avoid it.

[ablarc]

^ Its neighbors are just as bad. Skyline ruined.

[NYguy]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg

You can't avoid it.


It's the largest in the city, and I just hate it, along with it's brothers to the south, New York Plaza.

[BigMac]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water
[img]http://www.aefsales.com/55%20water.jpg[img]

You can't avoid it.Did its renovated plaza ever become as popular as was hoped for?

As for ugliest building, Chase Manhattan would have to be a contender.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
I was there three times, and it seemed popular to me.

However, it's not a public space in the sense of Columbus Circle; it's more an area workforce amenity.

Easy to miss from the street, I guess it would be desolate on weekends.

[lofter1]

I've never been there during weekday lunch hours ...

The times I've been there I've never seen more than 5 others up top, and it's usually less than that.

It's a nice place on a summer day to loll around. But bring a bottle of water.

[lbjefferies]

YES!! The one with the stupid angle. That one makes me mad too.


The very one. Grrrrrr

[Viktorkrum77]

Forgot the hated building:

55 Water

You can't avoid it.

Don't mind the architecture but the color is awful.

BTW does anyone happen to have a picture of this building across from the Lincoln Center? I can't find it anywhere on Google, but then again, I don't know it's name.

[H-man]

55 water is huge. must be like 3-3.5 million sq feet

[kz1000ps]

It's website has it listed at 3.8 msf. If I remember correctly, the structural bays are on a 25 ft grid, meaning it's 175 x 350 ft, and that makes for whopping 61,250 sq ft floor plates..!

[H-man]

thats massive.

[ZippyTheChimp]

As for ugliest building, Chase Manhattan would have to be a contender.
Well, it was the first ti disrupt the skyline.

Mid 1960s
http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/9799/skyline01chy6.jpg

[NoyokA]

thats massive.

And there's still 500,000 square feet of unused air-rights.

[millertime83]

Port Authority Bus Terminal and the windowless 40-storey tall Verizon Phone Substation in Lower Manhattan

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/6/61/350px-Port-authority-terminal.jpg
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/Pict0032a.jpg

[kliq6]

Yes, 375 pearl street is an ugly on, id say the worst in Lower Manhattan by far

[Harvick2933]

I never found myself disliking the MetLife Building over the years of me being a skyscraper enthusiast, nor did I ever find its dominance over its northern neighbor (Helmsley Building) offensive. It definitely enhances the Park Ave canyon effect and I just can't picture it being anywhere else in Midtown.

There are plenty of other buildings that are IMO junk in NYC. For example, I find the Westin Times Square and the "Zebra Building" in Clinton to be ridiculously tacky (The William Beaver will join those two once it's built). The cheap blocky apartment across Lincoln Center and the Corinthian also qualifies. Also, I find many of the newer residential buildings going up in NYC to be rather cookie-cutter and low-quality in design.

Civic Center also have many uglies, like the windowless fortress AT&T Long Line Building and the massive Javits Federal Building. Definitely some of the worst buildings in NYC. I actually don't mind the Verizon switching center by the Brooklyn Bridge though, since it actually have windows on its facade and it looks decent enough for a telecom fortress as compared to its NYC peers.

[Citytect]

Long Lines gets a lot of negative reactions, but I don't think it's all that terrible relatively speaking. I find it rather artfully done for such a utilitarian purpose. And when you take into account all the structural requirements for the building, it's hard to picture anything better. I find it surprising the building looks as good as it does and that such expensive cladding was used. My biggest complaint about the Long Lines building would be its unfortunate location.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I worked in that, and other telephone buildings in the city.

It's structurally similar to the windowed 32 6th Ave and Barclay buildings. All have thick floorplates and floor-to-floor heights 16 to 18 ft to accommodate tall equipment bays and overhead cable racks. One of the reasons for no windows was to reduce heat loss. The building was designed to capture and store the heat generated by the equipment. However, with technological changes at the time it was being built, the newer equipment generated much less heat. So it was always cold inside - just like a cave. :)

A waste of high-quality pink granite.

The windowless environment didn't bother me much until one day when I was on the roof and experienced the views.

[kz1000ps]

Long Lines gets a lot of negative reactions, but I don't think it's all that terrible relatively speaking. I find it rather artfully done for such a utilitarian purpose

Thank you. It's ugly, but it's one of those buildings that is so nasty that it captures the imagination and almost transcends ugliness, IMO. I have strong memories of it as a child, looking up and thinking of all the ominous things that surely are going on inside...(oh, the wires!). Even as late as 2001, when I was in my late teens, it still had a strong effect on me. Very evocative.

[Citytect]

A waste of high-quality pink granite.

I have to disagree. We're lucky cheap materials weren't used on the facade. When you have such vast blank walls, the cladding material has to be beautiful. Otherwise the building would look ugly AND cheap - not a good pair.

You said it, kz1000ps: evocative... Forlorn, menacing, but capable of stirring the imagination.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I have to disagree. We're lucky cheap materials weren't used on the facadeNot what I meant.

Many decent designs are compromised by cheap materials and shoddy construction. The opposite occurred at 33 Thomas.

The same technology advances that made it cold on the inside saved it from becoming a true hulk. The plaza is not a zoning bonus; what you see today is half a building. It was to extend out to Broadway with the address 323. The east facade was left unfinished for several years, the granite weathering in a New Jersey field, while a battle was waged to save 319 Broadway, built in 1869.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/Pict0034a.jpg

AT&T gave up and finished cladding the building. 319 was landmarked in 1989.

An earlier photo by Bernice Abbott gives a hint of what was lost on this block.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SOH/071.jpg

Note the original 2nd floor facade has been restored.

The identical 317 Broadway was demolished in 1971 and replaced by a two story piece of junk that I think has always been a McDonald's.

[Citytect]

I didn't know that about the east facade, but I still don't understand why that makes it a waste of the granite. :confused: What's the alternative that you find less wasteful of the material?

[ZippyTheChimp]

I'm not implying that it would have been better not to waste good granite on this building.

It was a statement of irony. Often, good design is ruined by cheap materials, not usually the other way around.

[Citytect]

Oh, okay. I guess I focused too much on your use of the word waste.

[Joelio]

I've never been a particular fan of the Citicorp Center. You know, the one with the angles top and the four stilts that hold it up. The top part is fine, it's just the four *hideous* stilts I hate. Uuuurrrgh...

[pianoman11686]

^A relatively early example of community-forced compromise.

[ld876]

Marriot 39th and 6th, my opinion the ugliest and most wasted prime site out there

I think the Marriott Marquis is a pretty optimally wasted site (visually unappealing exterior, drab interior, great location). Times square needs a real high rise in the middle of it all. When was the last building constructed on Times Sq?

[Harvick2933]

I think the Marriott Marquis is a pretty optimally wasted site (visually unappealing exterior, drab interior, great location). Times square needs a real high rise in the middle of it all. When was the last building constructed on Times Sq?

That would be the Times Square Tower in 2004, rising behind 1 Times Square and putting the finishing touch on the process of framing the entire Times Square proper with skyscrapers all around. Not too long ago really...

But I guess if you mean a building that's directly on the Broadway-7th Ave junction, then I guess it's the W-Hotel, which is built in 2001. It's on the block between the Marriott Marquis and Morgan Stanley Tower.

[lofter1]

As for a building that actually FRONTS onto the open space of Times Square you'd probably have to look at the former Bertelsmann Building (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6DA163EF936A15757C0A9659582 60) -- completed in 1990 after many years of troubled construction (aka 1540 Broadway and home to Virgin Records):

http://www.newyorkarchitecture.info/NYAI/Images/Buildings/BertelsmannBuilding-001.jpg

[Jaffster]

What is the site right next to the W hotel?

[Bojangleman]

To be entirely honest, I think the Met life building is a monstrosity. I mean, it's sort of become ingrained in the city's psyche, and I've become so incredibly accostomed to looking at it, so it'd be a shame to see it torn down. But I still wish they would have made it a little less ugly back when they built it.

[lofter1]

The W Hotel block-front has the empty Howard Johnson's site, then a couple of old storefronts (one was originally the Broadway entrance to what is now the Lunt Fontanne Theater on W. 46th Street), the Roxy [?] Deli -- and then the Blue Fin Bar (which is part of the W Hotel and thereby technically makes the W Hotel a building that fronts onto TS -- but the tower is so hidden behind signage / scaffolding from TS that the tower appears to be a few lots to the west of TS).

And me thinks I mis-wrote earlier when I said the newest building to front onto TS is the former Bertellsman Building ...

Actually the newest could be the full-block building at the north end of TS which houses the Ramada Renaissance (and -- let's not forget -- the Olive Garden). Again this building is so covered with signs that the building itself makes little impression -- although I kind of like the hard-edged blackness of north & west facades. The signage facing onto TS is good. The canopy / marquis on the east side is a big Vegas-y mess. But the clock comes in handy when coming up from the N/R train ...

http://www.wynjade.com/nrf06/hotel_images/Renaissance.jpg

[Jaffster]

The scaffolding gave me the impression that something was going on there. It looks like the old buildings are being demolished.

[lofter1]

The scaffolding at the former Howard Johnson's site has been up for months -- but now that the new "No Ads on Scaffolding" regulations have gone into effect the scaffolding might have outlived its usefulness.

I'm not aware of any concrete plans for a new building on that site.

Anyone with the scoop on the NW corner of Broadway / W 46th?

[kliq6]

SL Green owns it and are planning a new Reatil store there, maybe a small office tower as well in the future

[stache]

I walked by it on 46th this evening, it's coming down.

[NoyokA]

Gridskipper:

Ugliest Buildings in New York, According to the Experts:

Of New York City's buildings, many are okay, some are beautiful and a few are horrifically ugly. Since derogations are always more fun than compliments and ugly more interesting than beautiful, we asked eleven architects, architect writers and various other sundry experts for their picks of the most god-awfully hideous edifices in New York City.

After the jump, Ma Bell gets ripped a new one and Donald Trump is so ugly that if ugly was bricks she'd have projects.

Ugliest Building: The Sculpture for Living
Expert: David Haskell, Executive Director Forum For Urban Design
Here's the only building in New York I think is painfully ugly: the Sculpture for Living. The high-end condo boom has produced other mistakes (see: Blue building), but those are not necessarily ugly--just misplaced, misguided and/or overwrought. The Astor place building, on the other hand, is bad from the ground up. Paul Goldberger's New Yorker review was too kind.

Ugliest Building: Citicorp Building, Leighton House Residential Tower
Expert: Mosette Broderick, Department head of architecture and urban planning at NYU
I might suggest the banal white tile clad Upper East Side apartment buildings built after the war. There are tons of them. Once known as "stewardess buildings" they are now condos. These buildings line First, Second and Third Avenues starting in the 70s. Then there are the sore thumbs that stand out badly like the Citibank building in Queens, or the building on 88th Street near First avenue which is triple the size of anything else around. Also, there are the office buildings of the 1950's and 60's on Sixth Avenue and especially Park Ave just above the Lever House. You have good at Lever and very bad across the street on 54th Street.

Ugliest Building: Museum of Art and Design, PanAm Building
Expert: Françoise Bollack, head architect of the firm Françoise Bollack Architects
I used to think the Mobil Building on 42nd street was ugly, but I've since changed my mind. That gives you a feeling of the transitory nature of our feelings. I have trepidation of the new Museum of Art and Design building at Columbus Circle. It was originally designed by Edward Stone and seems to be being defaced. However, this hasn't been unveiled yet so I will reserve my judgment. There are some banal buildings like the Trump Buildings. And there are some mid century ugly buildings like the Pan Am building.

Ugliest Building: Trump Buildings
Expert: John Beckmann, founder of architecture firm Axis Mundi
Anything with TRUMP on it is ugly. They're all equally bland, and it's too bad because he has the money to actually build something important. By he's not interested in architecture, only money and power.

Ugliest Building: 750 Seventh Ave
Expert: John Lumea, author of architecture blog Horizonr
The one that keeps springing to mind is 750 Seventh Ave, near Times Square -- a 35-story office building designed by Kevin Roche and completed in 1989. For a "developer building," it's probably a fair, albeit a little clunky and pedestrian, architectural response to its small island site. But the top, in particular, has that half-baked, cheap-ass quality of every front and rear-end that has rolled off a Detroit assembly line since, oh, 1972? And what's up with that sawed-off spire? It is possibly the most awkward, cumbersome, inelegant skyline presence of any tall building in the City.

Ugliest Building AT&T Long Lines Building
Expert: William Robinette, architecture graduate student at Columbia University
I've always thought the AT&T building down by Lafayette was unsightly. In trying to come up with reasons why it's ugly, I'm actually thinking it's pretty cool. I guess it's ugly because it's boring...if you were looking for a really terrifying building it would be great.

Ugliest Building:The Whitney Museum
Expert: Chad Smith, architect and writer, author of Tropolism
Sometimes I think ugly works, brilliantly. For example, the Whitney Museum is ugly, in the sense that it's raw concrete, windowless upper stories, and brutal anti-grav profile are very alien to most other buildings. But its brutality is what makes it wonderful--it's completely unlike the rest of the Upper East Side. The contrast, taken to its limit, is refreshing. And the way it meets the street, with the (technically innovative at the time) two-story glass windows that go from the ground level to the garden/cafe below, is simply brilliant, gracious, and, well, civic. It's not a building that it thumbing its nose to the city, but it's not trying to "match" either. So while I might describe it as ugly, it's also my favorite building in Manhattan. The best brutalist buildings do what the Whitney does: create a careful balance between material rawness and elegant connections. Needless to say, many brutalist buildings don't hit the mark: you need an architect as good as Breuer to pull it off.
Runners up: The Lipstick Building by Phillip Johnson and the Museum of Television and Radio.

Ugliest Building: The Theater Row Tower
Expert: Joey Arak, writer for Curbed
Easy. The Zebra. You come up from the tunnel, thrilled to be out of Jersey, and you're greeted by that monstrosity. Thank God it's a rental building, because the thought of anyone shelling out hard-earned cash to own a chunk of that beast makes me want to put a plastic bag over my head.

Ugliest Building: Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners
Expert: John Hill, author of architecture blog A Daily Dose of Architecture
The ugliest (recent) building in New York is Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners. How to obliterate history in five easy steps: Step 1: Hire Norman Foster. Step 2: Sit back and wait while Lord Foster channels R. Buckminster Fuller and designs a "diagrid" exterior wall. Step 3: Land the new 46-story tower on and in a 1928, six-story historical landmark, but be sure to keep the existing, two-dimensional exterior walls and clean 'em until they look like a molded plastic model. Step 4: Don't bother to give the building any sense of entry, and go ahead and make the grand lobby space inaccessible to the public while you're at it. Step 5: Market the sustainable aspects of the tower to gloss over its ugly and hulking presence on the skyline.

Ugliest Building: The Cross Bronx Expressway.
Expert: John Massengale, architect, architecture author, founding member of Congress for the New Urbanism
Five "anti-uglies":The Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, Otto Kahn Mansion, Shively Sanitary Tenements, and Park Slope. The last, of course, is not a building but a neighborhood, but the beauty of New York, or any city, is in how the buildings go together. For the worst, I would pick not a building but the Cross Bronx Expressway, a supremely ugly, anti-urban structure. In some parts of the city, it's exactly like the Berlin Wall, but uglier.

Ugliest Building: The AT&T Headquarters (now the Sony Building), The Freedom Tower
Expert: Jason Van Nest, intern architect
Here a skyscraper crafted at the scale of the city was likened, or reduced to a simple piece of furniture with a Chippendale top. It caused a stir because the crowning detail was interpreted as a blithe gesture, an act of nonchalance that everyone in Midtown is forced to confront on their daily walk. Instead, one would hope that architecture should inspire loftier aspirations than these casual, reductive analogies. With the Freedom Tower, critiques run well ahead of construction because it's simultaneously viewed as a failure of Architecture to represent or address the spirit of the times; a failure of our city to address the needs of its people; and a portrait of corporate greed being the strongest voice shaping public space downtown.

[ablarc]

^ Experts, schmexperts.

[lofter1]

Ugly = Beauty ...



Ugliest Building: The Whitney Museum

Expert: Chad Smith, architect and writer, author of Tropolism

Sometimes I think ugly works, brilliantly ... the Whitney Museum is ugly ... raw concrete, windowless upper stories, and brutal anti-grav profile are very alien ... its brutality is what makes it wonderful ... the way it meets the street ... two-story glass windows that go from the ground level to the garden/cafe below, is simply brilliant, gracious, and, well, civic. It's not a building that it thumbing its nose to the city, but it's not trying to "match" either ... while I might describe it as ugly, it's also my favorite building in Manhattan ... Needless to say, many brutalist buildings don't hit the mark: you need an architect as good as Breuer to pull it off.

[Bob]

Philip Johnson's AT&T Building is actually quite good, although its location couldn't have been worse. The lobby was really spectacular when it included the so-called "Golden Boy," which as we all should know was moved out some time ago.

As for the Pan Am building, I realize everybody has his/her own tastes. I just happen to really like it.

[Harvick2933]

Ugliest Building: The Theater Row Tower
Expert: Joey Arak, writer for Curbed
Easy. The Zebra. You come up from the tunnel, thrilled to be out of Jersey, and you're greeted by that monstrosity. Thank God it's a rental building, because the thought of anyone shelling out hard-earned cash to own a chunk of that beast makes me want to put a plastic bag over my head.

Joey Arak hit the nail on the head with his comment about this McSam-quality monster. Easily the worst building to grace the NYC skyline. Unfortunately, Sam Chang and Gene Kaufman just have to like it so much that they are building other smaller monstrosities just like it all across Manhattan...

[lofter1]

To put the rightful blame where it belongs ...

420 W. 42nd Street

Theater Row Tower

Architect: PETER CLAMAN / SCHUMAN LICHTENSTEIN CLAMAN EFRON

Other work: 125 West 31st Street (The Epic) - Wired New York Forum (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3321)

[BrooklynRider]

They are a mainstay of NYC residential tower design. Alot of NYC - specially upper west side buildings are SLCE.

[Derek2k3]

Probably the most nonsensical list ever...



Top 10 ugliest buildings in New York City

BY JASON SHEFTELL
DAILY NEWS REAL ESTATE CORRESPONDENT

http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/galleries/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city.html#ixz z0sonqMCnM


Want to see some ugly buildings?

New York's got its share, and the new edition of the AIA Guide to New York City shows you where to find them - pointing them out with great glee.

Here are reviews of 10 of New York's most hideous buildings:





10. Former Bear Stearns World Headquarters, 383 Madison Ave.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_01.jpg

A bulky octagonal hulk for the mighty Wall Streeter felled in the 2009 financial crash. Stolid, not graceful; a dour banker in a bespoke suit.






9. T.G.I. FRIDAY'S, 604 Fifth Ave.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_02.jpg

The brilliant blue on Fifth Ave. is a sign of desperate marketing.






8. The Four Seasons Hotel, 57 E. 57th St.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_03.jpg

Pompous.






7. Montefiore Apartments II, 3450 Wayne Ave., the Bronx

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_04.jpg

Scale, but not human scale.






6. Training Center, Ironworkers Local 40 & 361, 35-23 36th St., Queens

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_05.jpg

A Constructivist steel building for welders in training. Perhaps they will practice on the building!






5. Trump Place, between W. 66th and W. 70th Sts. west of West End Ave.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_06.jpg

The phony incarnation of Riverside Drive, south of its historic 72nd St. ending, has sprouted awkward giants, glorious to look out from (at the river and the Palisades) and inglorious to look at.






4. Trump Tower, 725 Fifth Ave. at E. 56th St.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_07.jpg

Folded glass conceals a fantasyland for the affluent shopper. Within, the multilevel space houses a cafe with waterfalls and moving stairways to a shopper's heaven; flamboyant, exciting and emblematic of the American Dream. Donald Trump entered here stage left and has since delivered the Trump brand everywhere: His esthetics, however, are still more akin to malt liquor than to Veuve Clicquot.





3. 200 Eleventh Ave.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_08.jpg

The "sky garage" (an elevator that lifts cars directly into the apartments) sounds exhausting.






2. 520 W. 27th St.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_09.jpg

Apartments in two parts, with an outdoor recreation space between. The base is black block with white window frames flush to the facade. The upper stories, steel frame with translucent glass block, are reminiscent of the Brooklyn House of Detention. Can the residents leave on weekends?

Apparently no research went into this article, this is a commercial building.






1. Times Tower, The New York Times Building, Eighth Ave. between 40th and 41st Sts.


http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/07/05/gal_buildings_10.jpg

A tense tower obsessed with its own fussy connections, its glass facade bracketed by steel columns, X-bracing for lateral support and horizontal bars that act as a sunscreen (and ladder: Lunatics have been climbing it). As gray and dour as a rain-soaked copy of the Sunday Styles section.

[Fabrizio]

This list was compiled by someone with zero taste and understanding ( it's easy to point out the obvious like 520 W. 27th St.).

[Bob]

How anybody could place the former Bear Stearns Tower on a list of ugly buildings is beyond me. Bear Stearns is a beauty, and should have been 40 floors taller!

And, how could any list of ugly buildings not include 60 Wall Street?

[oquatanginwan]

Without a doubt that was the stupidest list I have ever seen. Especially due to the captions.

The sky garage "sounds exhausting?"
As gray and dour as a rain soaked Sunday Styles section? The Sunday Styles section is the most colorful section!

What a moron.

[archnyer]

Do most New Yorkers still despise the Met Life building (formerly Pan Am building)? Is it still, to date, the most hated building in New York City?

Apart from that, what building do you most despise in NYC?

That's one of the best buildings in the city. What are you talking about?

[archnyer]

The Cityspire Center is one of the worst looking.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Regardless of whether or not any of these buildings are ugly, the list seems to be more concerned with some vague social commentary. Even that's not well done.

How do you rate a building still covered in construction netting?

[archnyer]

Social commentary in architecture writing?

I can't believe it!

[Derek2k3]

The anvil that the Daily News occupies...

http://www.observer.com/files/full/450%20west%2033%20-%20prop%20shark.jpg

[ablarc]

A pompous list with no insight and nothing interesting to say.

Anyone on this forum could compile a better list.


Dross.

[archnyer]

The anvil that the Daily News occupies...

http://www.observer.com/files/full/450%20west%2033%20-%20prop%20shark.jpg

That's a beauty! What are you talking about!

[infoshare]

The Four Seasons? That is one a BEAUTIFUL building. And, the lobby in this hotel is one of the most tasteful I have seen (http://www.fourseasons.com/newyorkfs/): most NYC (including the new plaza hotel) hotel lobbies in are pretty tacky - this one an exception to the rule.

But really folks: the journalist here is clearly just 'taking-a-piss'.

[archnyer]

Yes infoshares I agree with you the Four Seasons is very nice.

[infoshare]

Thanks, you have good taste, but I am still going to ban you for soon: reason - 'taking-a-piss' (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=define:internet+troll&defl=en&sa=X&ei=EUYyTOvXHoL6lwe-17C-Cw&ved=0CAQQowMoAA).

Otherwise know as being a bit of a Troll. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&q=define:troll&sa=X&ei=5kUyTNrOLsGblgeVjLm_Cw&ved=0CBIQkAE)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&q=define:troll&sa=X&ei=5kUyTNrOLsGblgeVjLm_Cw&ved=0CBIQkAE
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=define:internet+troll&defl=en&sa=X&ei=EUYyTOvXHoL6lwe-17C-Cw&ved=0CAQQowMoAA

[stache]

Big yay and thank you for that. :)

[Derek2k3]

A more plausible list:

The Gallerina Guide to NYC's Ugliest Buildings

Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 04:00 PM
By Carolina Miranda

http://culture.wnyc.org/blogs/gallerina/2010/jun/03/nycs-ugliest-buildings/


http://parmenides.wnyc.org/media/photologue/photos/Miss%20Ugly%20Buildings%202010.jpg

Because not every structure can be beautiful: Our tribute to the City's ugly buildings. (Illustration by Shane Eichacker; Photo by digital_freak)



I've never seen this building before:
http://parmenides.wnyc.org/media/photologue/photos/cache/Society%20of%20St%20Paul%20Seminary%20by%20agility nut_storyslide_image.jpg

[lofter1]

Not so plausible when taken in whole (http://culture.wnyc.org/blogs/gallerina/2010/jun/03/nycs-ugliest-buildings/).

For example ...


9. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF ART, Upper East Side (1963-66). Marcel Breuer's bunker/museum is historic, important and, in its day, seriously avant garde. The AIA describes it as a "must-be-seen modern object." But that doesn't make it pretty.

:confused:

[lofter1]

And why is this on the list?

5. HEARST TOWER, Columbus Circle Area (1927-28 and 2006). On their own, each of the structures that comprise this unusual pairing are attractive. But, together, not so much. The structure consists of a zig-zagging, contemporary tower, designed by British starchitect Norman Foster, that emerges from the shell of a 1920s deco building -- an architectural juxtaposition that led the AIA's writers to draw a comparison to the belly-bursting monsters on Aliens. Not good.

[lofter1]

I could also argue that the Westin is the perfect entry marker to Times Square: crass, bold, loud, tacky, in your face.

But Ugly? Nope.

[Merry]

^ Have to disagree with that. Brings on the urge to chunder...in the same colours ;).

No mention on the lists or in this thread of 1 Liberty Plaza :mad:. Merry's Most Malignant.

Or 1 New York Plaza.

[ablarc]

^ Did you forget the Morgan Bank by Roche?

Btw, I agree with you about the Westin.

[oquatanginwan]

The Westin is puerile garbage. It suits the forced zany, family friendly image of Times Square for morons and tourists. It looks especially bad now that 11 Times Square and the NYTimes building are there for contrast. But you have to give it credit for breaking ground there.

The Kevin Roche Morgan bank on Wall Street is also garbage. It's the architectural expression of a fat banker in an oversized double-breasted, shiny sharkskin suit, with wide leg pleated pants.

[Fabrizio]

Forced zany describes it well. It's all ironic comment on ironic comment.

If it had been built in 1962... if it had been designed by Morris Lapidus... at least it would have been a sincere gesture.

[ablarc]

And it would have had a certain swish elegance.

[Merry]

The photo of the Trump Soho makes it look truly awful.

Don't agree about the World Financial Center, but the alteration of the building on 31st Street is a disgrace.

(click images for larger versions)


The Ugliest Buildings in NYC

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S9WBCfiF3AI/AAAAAAAAHXQ/ZjdvDo5fkv4/s200/196_6thAve3_sm.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S9WBCfiF3AI/AAAAAAAAHXQ/ZjdvDo5fkv4/s1600/196_6thAve3_sm.jpg)
First up, on Sixth Ave. near Vandam. The building on the left aspires to Class on the first floor, then slumps into an Edge City Budget facade as it rises, and finally erupts in a splashy crown of sheet metal pipes combed over the bleak bald lumps on its head -- designed to suggest labor camp cottages downwind of a Hershey's factory? From West Side Eyesores (http://www.restlus.com/2010/04/west-side-eyesores.html).

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S6a6p73FpZI/AAAAAAAAHQI/40J4omzI6KM/s200/uglyMirror2_sm.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S6a6p73FpZI/AAAAAAAAHQI/40J4omzI6KM/s1600-h/uglyMirror2_sm.jpg)
The Trump Soho at Varick & Spring. It takes some doing to make a reflective building this ugly, and it's even worse close up. The cutouts / lumps that define the building give it the look of an evil robot, and every time I look at them I think of people inside the lumps remarking "Hey! We're inside one of those lumps!" From 7 WTC's Clear Complexion 2 (http://www.restlus.com/2010/03/7-wtcs-clear-complexion-2.html).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S5BQqiIlBYI/AAAAAAAAHGg/UgP42zMybt0/s200/wFinCtr1a_sm.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S5BQqiIlBYI/AAAAAAAAHGg/UgP42zMybt0/s1600-h/wFinCtr1a_sm.jpg)
The World Financial Center, on the Hudson west of the World Trade Center site. This is the most flattering shot you can take of the complex.

Its surface looks like brown plastic mailing tape, and the "grand entrance" on the complex's south side should come with a warning that -- like Lot's wife leaving Sodom -- bad things will happen if you take a good look at it. From 7 WTC's Clear Complexion 1 (http://www.restlus.com/2010/03/7-wtcs-clear-complexion-1.html).

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/TCCT-vPuN0I/AAAAAAAAHs8/gnVtcfo577Y/s200/w31stHeadlessHotel1_sm400px.jpg (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/S54h7hdhFqI/AAAAAAAAHNA/sfccut_VmJk/s1600-h/w31stHeadlessHotel1_sm.jpg)
On 31st St. off 5th Ave. It's the top of this building that's ugly -- they replaced the original, ornate top with something that looks like a cinder block septic tank with windows, or a prison-issue shaved head. It's part of a shortsighted, cheapskate trend that's stripped cornices and ornamentation off way too many old NYC buildings.

It's especially cruel since this building was the original home of Life Magazine, and the now-naked top was full of bachelor apartments that served as the magazine's "esthetic maternity ward." From Headless Hotel (http://www.restlus.com/2010/03/headless-hotel.html).

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/RhLoitVqcBI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/EFoqeG3WNEc/s200/grnOrBld_sm.jpg (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/RhLoitVqcBI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/EFoqeG3WNEc/s1600-h/grnOrBld_sm.jpg)
The orange building on the right, which sits at 34th St. and Park Ave. South, is pretty putrid. (Meanwhile the green Tyvek, exposed for 3 years now, makes the building it covers on the left look better.) From Better Buildings (http://www.restlus.com/2007/04/snapshot-better-buildings.html).


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/RhLoXNVqcAI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/t0bxlfi3kZQ/s200/nyu2b_sm.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/RhLoXNVqcAI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/t0bxlfi3kZQ/s1600-h/nyu2b_sm.jpg)
Almost any NYU dorm could make an Ugly list, including this one on 14th St. just west of 3rd Ave., where there are more ugly NYU dorms.

Education is big business, and ambitious self-serving colleges devour their host cities; NYU warehouses its students in hulks so thoughtless they practically spit on their surroundings. From Ugly NYU Buildings (http://www.restlus.com/2007/04/snapshot-ugly-nyu-buildings.html).

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/SBD9sOSgyNI/AAAAAAAABrg/wLMYjzaL_4Y/s200/condoInspir1a.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JZxRJAesT0Q/SBD9sOSgyNI/AAAAAAAABrg/wLMYjzaL_4Y/s1600-h/condoInspir1a.jpg)
Architect Karl Fischer's heinous 20 Bayard, on McCarren Park in Williamsburg. On the left in the picture, what must have been Karl's inspiration.

The building's empty clock face, its vaguely Transformers shape and puny robot head, the kitchen slicer & dicer entrance... It all adds up to make 20 Bayard The Ugliest Building in NYC if not the world! From Karl Fischer in "The Showerhead" (http://www.restlus.com/2008/04/karl-fischer-in-showerhead.html) (like Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead). Note that I have improved and used this monster a few times: Karl Fischer Atlantic Yards (http://www.restlus.com/2008/06/karl-fischer-bunker-beds.html); 20 Bayard a la Frank Gehry (http://www.restlus.com/2008/07/fixing-karl-fischer-2.html); 20 Bayard a la Rick James (http://www.restlus.com/2008/06/fixing-karl-fischer.html).

http://www.restlus.com/2010/07/ugliest-buildings-in-nyc.html

[Merry]

Block along 35th St. walks off with ugliest title, says Municipal Art Society member

BY Erica Pearson

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/10/23/alg_art.jpg
The block of 35th St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves. plays starring role
in Municipal Art Society's 'Ugly Streets' tour.

Some streets are mean. Others are just plain ugly.

The ugliest stretch of midtown - and maybe all of Manhattan - is 35th St. between Sixth and Seventh Aves., according to Municipal Art Society member Frank Addeo.

"It's midtown's ugliest block," said the former Department of Transportation and Downtown Alliance staffer, who highlighted the spot as part of an "Ugly Streets" walking tour Friday.

"Blank-wall buildings drive me crazy," he said, gesturing to the shuttered back entrances and boring brick along the block.

Scaffolding and sidewalk sheds cover the back side of Macy's along the entire south side of the block, making it even darker.

People who walk the block every day were far from surprised at its dubious distinction, although a homeless man wearing underwear on his head seemed to find it an ideal spot to spend the afternoon.

Rick Tiberii, 39, a manager at nearby Premier Technology Solutions, said, "It's hideous! It's dirty. And the traffic! The road is always packed with cars. And it's dark. I just try to block it out."

A.J. Jimenez, 23, who works at Macy's, agreed.

"There should be more lights in here; it's really creepy at night," she said, but added that there is a plus side: "There's no tourists who walk here, so at least you don't have to push through a crowd."

Another ugly spot, Addeo said, is Eighth Ave. between 33rd and 32nd St., where empty space is wasted. Even the Farley Post Office building can't make up for what he sees as design and planning flaws.

"It is barren, presently - it's uninviting," he said. "There's plenty of space here for restaurants and cafes like we see in Bryant Park."

Addeo, who gave the tour during the society's two-day Summit for New York City conference, promised to show "the good, the bad and the ugly" of city streets.

The winner of a "most improved" prize was Broadway near Herald Square, thanks to its lively pedestrian plazas and lush landscaping, he said.

And the crowning beauty? Cobblestoned Stone St. in lower Manhattan, which got a makeover and opened up to outdoor cafes and pedestrians about a decade ago, he said.

"Stone St. was a street that no one would walk down,"Addeo said. "And now - it's a great amenity in the middle of the Wall St. area."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/23/2010-10-23_block_walks_off_with_ugliest_title.html#ixzz13E YrntrX

[MidtownGuy]

Education is big business, and ambitious self-serving colleges devour their host cities; NYU warehouses its students in hulks so thoughtless they practically spit on their surroundings.NYU is despicable when it comes to their new dorms.

[Stroika]

So some dude who is the self-appointed judge of Manhattan's streets thinks 35th between 6th and 7th is the ugliest stretch in "maybe all of Manhattan"? Seriously? That area is, as I recall, mainly typical 1910s and 1920s Garment District buildings. Dense, brooding, dark, and beautiful. Personally, the Garment District is one of my favorite parts of Manhattan -- it's pure Gotham.

To say that that is the "ugliest street" in Manhattan amidst so many housing projects, Kaufmans, two-story public schools, barren lots, and other postwar masterpieces of trash isn't just wrong or hyperbolic but, IMO, dangerous. When the NYDN or AIA or whoever goes around calling Renzo Piano's new NYT Building the city's ugliest (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/galleries/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city.html), they are harming the entire city. By taking prominent new buildings that are clearly, obviously not the ugliest in the city, they willfully neglect the massive amounts of postwar dross that really do make the city an uglier, worse place. In turning the public against IM Pei's Four Seasons -- rather than, say, taking aim at the large swaths of the city marred by Robert Moses-era redevelopment schemes or at the thousands of Fedders boxes, Kaufmans, Poons, O'Haras, ditched parking lots (which are the equivalent of those aforementioned architects) and so on -- they implicitly give that cheap crap the green light while encouraging hatred of starchitecture that, while often not worthy of an actually great architect is clearly head and shoulders above everything else we've been seeing built since 1950.

[LemSkroob]

So some dude who is the self-appointed judge of Manhattan's streets thinks 35th between 6th and 7th is the ugliest stretch in "maybe all of Manhattan"? Seriously? That area is, as I recall, mainly typical 1910s and 1920s Garment District buildings. Dense, brooding, dark, and beautiful. Personally, the Garment District is one of my favorite parts of Manhattan -- it's pure Gotham.

To say that that is the "ugliest street" in Manhattan amidst so many housing projects, Kaufmans, two-story public schools, barren lots, and other postwar masterpieces of trash isn't just wrong or hyperbolic but, IMO, dangerous. When the NYDN or AIA or whoever goes around calling Renzo Piano's new NYT Building the city's ugliest (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/galleries/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city/top_10_ugliest_buildings_in_new_york_city.html), they are harming the entire city. By taking prominent new buildings that are clearly, obviously not the ugliest in the city, they willfully neglect the massive amounts of postwar dross that really do make the city an uglier, worse place. In turning the public against IM Pei's Four Seasons -- rather than, say, taking aim at the large swaths of the city marred by Robert Moses-era redevelopment schemes or at the thousands of Fedders boxes, Kaufmans, Poons, O'Haras, ditched parking lots (which are the equivalent of those aforementioned architects) and so on -- they implicitly give that cheap crap the green light while encouraging hatred of starchitecture that, while often not worthy of an actually great architect is clearly head and shoulders above everything else we've been seeing built since 1950.

The district has some nice blocks...this ain't one of them. I walk it every day coming out of the F train at the 35th entrance to head to 7th ave.

The entire south side of the street is the Macy's building, and its *not* the nice Christmas window side. Its the service side. Blower vents from the Cellar restaurant downstairs, and loading docks with trucks CONSTANTLY blocking the sidewalk. The block gets so dingy, Macy's has to come and sand-blast the grime off the building about 3x more often then the rest of the building.

The north side is not all that much better. Again, this is the service side. For a while, there was a small deli along there with a gigantic vent that blew right out at about 10' above the sidewalk. made the whole bock stink of fried foods and bad eggs. Fortunately, that place is closed now.

[MidtownGuy]

Stroika hits it exactly.
---

Anyway, the back of Macy's beats the back of the Port Authority bus station any day.
there's no question...the ugliest stretch in all Manhattan has got to be 41st Street between Ninth and Eighth...there are no shops or delis, the huge dirty ugliness of Port Authority looms along both sides; you've even got a gloomy and forlorn tunnel formed by the PA where it hulks over a portion of the street. This is the urban side of hell.