Friday, September 21, 2007

Some Idiot....

on the yet to be seen design for Beekman Tower - another Ratner-Ghery 'masterpiece' (tax payer subsidized, thank you)quote::

"“It’s drop-dead gorgeous,” says our source, who has seen the model and is sympathetic to community concerns about the building’s height. The wavy tower “looks like the ocean’s above you.”"

I don't know about you, but I prefer for buildings to look like, well buildings, not 'the ocean's above you' - the appearance of which is usually called a tidal wave...
Nor am I willing to take the word- site unseen, - that the building is 'drop dead gorgeous' because I have yet to see anything by Ghery that would remotely be called beautiful, and I am highly skeptical of the taste of anyone who would describe a building as 'drop dead gorgeous'

NLG informs us that Ratner may be having financing problems:

NoLandGrab: Clearly, Gehry and Ratner's caginess is beginning to raise suspicion, since real estate spectators have been eagerly awaiting the final renderings for some time (see, here, here, and here).

We've been keeping tabs on this project, the first Gehry-designed Forest City Ratner collaboration. Though the Beekman St. tower might appear to have little in common with the controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject, two things are worth tracking:

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the cost of the public school, which is already slated to be the most expensive school per-square-foot in NYC history, and which is to be borne by the taxpayers, and
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the overall price tag, which certainly includes a premium for the global starchitect's services, and is now undoubtedly rising because of the growing costs of financing and building materials, and increasing competition for "as-of-right" subsidies.

[Back in April, Matthew Schuerman reported in The NY Observer some details of the financing structure of the Beekman Street project, including a few stumbling blocks.]



Of course, taxpayers will assume the risk for Atlantic Yards (and Ratner, nearly all of the profit) so why should he care about the subprime meltdown, collapsing real estate market and skyrocketing construction costs - we'll pay for it, he won't? What's not to like?

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