The Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved yesterday alterations to renovate the former Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company Bulding at 510 Fifth Avenue on the southwest corner at 43rd Street.
The alternations by Vornado Realty Trust will add new entrances to the building on Fifth Avenue and reposition the escalators from the ground to the second floor.
Only a week ago, the commission sent the renovation plans by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill back for a second time.
"The architects at SOM conceded nary an inch of their design," according to an article by Peter Davies today at ny.curbed.com, "pleading necessity based on the commercial desires of Vornado and Canada Joe. They won over the commissioners in attendance by focusing on restoration. A fresh strip of black at the bottom of the new doorways will be added to match the original black granite along the base. Black spandrels lining the second floor, a series of panels that have suffered over the years and are now in need of some restorative love, will get just that. And the cherries on top were some zinc strips, inspired by the originals, that will be inlaid into the terrazzo floor. The commissioners ate it up, declaring that even Gordon Bunshaft himself would have reason to be proud of SOM's inventive acts of renovation. The approval paves the way for Joe Fresh's big emporium, where stylin' jeans should be available behind glass sometime this fall."
The architectural historian Carol Herselle Krinksy submitted a comment to the article in which she said she could "assure you, as Bunshaft's biographer, that he would have been greatly distressed at the proposed changes."
"He knew how to yell, so 'greatly distressed' is a gentle expression. Small sops, such as the slivers of restoration described, do not compensate for the proposed renovation and partial destruction. Shame on the Commission! And was it essential to schedule the meeting on a religious holiday? Surely not. Anyone who claims that the facade has to be cut into doesn't take into account the fact that bank patrons managed to find the entrance at the corner. Surely patrons of Joe Fresh could, too, especially if creative window displays helped to indicate the way in."
Another commenter wrote that "the Commission just voted to throw away an original work of art in favor of a cheap reproduction."
The alternations by Vornado Realty Trust will add new entrances to the building on Fifth Avenue and reposition the escalators from the ground to the second floor.
Only a week ago, the commission sent the renovation plans by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill back for a second time.
"The architects at SOM conceded nary an inch of their design," according to an article by Peter Davies today at ny.curbed.com, "pleading necessity based on the commercial desires of Vornado and Canada Joe. They won over the commissioners in attendance by focusing on restoration. A fresh strip of black at the bottom of the new doorways will be added to match the original black granite along the base. Black spandrels lining the second floor, a series of panels that have suffered over the years and are now in need of some restorative love, will get just that. And the cherries on top were some zinc strips, inspired by the originals, that will be inlaid into the terrazzo floor. The commissioners ate it up, declaring that even Gordon Bunshaft himself would have reason to be proud of SOM's inventive acts of renovation. The approval paves the way for Joe Fresh's big emporium, where stylin' jeans should be available behind glass sometime this fall."
The architectural historian Carol Herselle Krinksy submitted a comment to the article in which she said she could "assure you, as Bunshaft's biographer, that he would have been greatly distressed at the proposed changes."
"He knew how to yell, so 'greatly distressed' is a gentle expression. Small sops, such as the slivers of restoration described, do not compensate for the proposed renovation and partial destruction. Shame on the Commission! And was it essential to schedule the meeting on a religious holiday? Surely not. Anyone who claims that the facade has to be cut into doesn't take into account the fact that bank patrons managed to find the entrance at the corner. Surely patrons of Joe Fresh could, too, especially if creative window displays helped to indicate the way in."
Another commenter wrote that "the Commission just voted to throw away an original work of art in favor of a cheap reproduction."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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