Cesar Pelli

"Looks like the Pelli building would be the easiest to climb." ["Rogers, Pelli, KPF: Their Visions of A Port Authority Tower"]

The Port Authority at its board meeting this afternoon is taking a look at three possible designs for the planned tower over its bus terminal, with the firms of Richard Rogers, Cesar Pelli and Kohn Pedersen Fox all submitting plans.

Steve Roth's Vornado, in the hunt for an anchor tenant, is the developer for the tower, which would sit across the street from the Renzo Piano-designed New York Times building.

Pelli Clarke Pelli designed the Bloomberg tower on Lexington Avenue for Vornado; Mr. Rogers' firm designed the planned Tower 3 at the World Trade Center; and KPF was signed on for JPMorgan Chase's now-scuttled new investment banking headquarters (with a notable goiter for trading floors) downtown.

Images below.  read more »

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in Chicago, with Emporis, released a survey of the ten tallest newcomers of 2005. Only one is in the United States: Cesar Pelli and Associates' Bloomberg Tower in Manhattan.

Architectural image is important to the identity of the city. It defines its character and, for New York, attracts the city's tourists. Yet America's tradition of building taller and bigger has been trumped by the rest of the world. Building tall is controversial here.

Nevertheless the beauty of these foreign towers are not in their size, but architectural shape and design--and that, too, can be controversial in New York as noplace else. Take a look here.

- Riva Froymovich

We read the New Yorker's 10,000-word Bloomberg piece over lunch (as Slate says, so you don't have to). No news in it, though Anthony seems to be trying to convince us otherwise.

But this struck us as an interesting observation (italics added):

"[Bloomberg] pointed to another, less obvious sign that the city was doing well: architectural trends.... 'All the great architects seem to want to work here. For a while, London had every great architect. Hong Kong had them. But they never came to New York. Now, whether it's Sir Norman Foster, or Cesar Pelli, Viñoly, Piano—they all want to work here.'

"It difficult to imagine Bloomberg's predecessors judging their records in these terms, but Bloomberg, who was born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts, is less parochial than most mayors. Like many businessmen who travel a lot, he thinks globally. He often talks about securing New York's place as the world's leading city—a status that Koch and Giuliani would never have thought of questioning in the first place. One reason that he wants New York to host the Olympics—and it is also why he brought the Republican Convention here—is to showcase the city to a worldwide audience.Unfortunately for Bloomberg, most New Yorkers don't much care what people in Europe and Asia think of them.  read more »

"He tries to hide his cosmopolitan tendencies, riding the subway to work, attending Yankees games, dining out on Staten Island, and wearing ethnic headgear when the occasion demands. But not even he takes this pose seriously."

Harlem 24 Hamilton Terrace

Five-bed, four-bath, 2,772-square-foot prewar town house.  read more »