The 1,155-foot-tall, mixed-use skyscraper planned by Hines Interests at 53 West 53rd Street and designed by Jean Nouvel, the French architect who recently was awarded the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, has been "delayed indefinitely," according to an article entitled "It Was Fun Till the Money Ran Out" in the December 19, 2008 edition of The New York Times by Nicholas Ouroussoff, the newspaper's architecture critic.

"Now that high-end bubble has popped, and it is unlikely to return anytime soon. Jean Nouvel's 75-story residential tower adjoining the Museum of Modern Art has been delayed indefinitely. And developers now seem loathe to undertake similar projects. Even if the economy turns around, the public's tolerance for outsize architecture statements that serve the rich and self-absorbed has already been pretty much exhausted. This is not all good news. A lot of wonderful architecture is being thrown out with the bad. Although most of Mr. Nouvel's MOMA tower would have been devoted to luxury apartments, for instance, it would have allowed the museum next door to expand its gallery space significantly. It would also have been one of the most spectacular additions to the Manhattan skyline since the Chrsyler Building," Mr. Ouroussoff wrote.

Mr. Nouvel is the architect of the recently completed condo project at 40 Mercer Street and of another under construction at 100 Eleventh Avenue.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission May 13, 2008 voted to approve by a vote of 7 to 0 applications for the proposed transfer of air rights from St. Thomas Church on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street and the University Club on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 54th Street to the proposed tower, which would be adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art.

The planned tower, known as the Tower Verre, would also use unused air rights from the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of American Folk Art, which is adjacent to the site.

Most of the speakers at the commission's hearing were residents from the neighborhood and civic organizations that were opposed to the air rights transfers and supportive of a resolution passed Community Board 5 March 13 that asked the commission not to recommend the transfers.

Mr. Nouvel told the commission at that hearing that his design would "enrich the neighborhood and open the sky to the street," adding that the very narrow building would be open at the top and illuminated at night, describing the design as "elan."

The transfers were being sought under zoning provisions known as 74-711 and 74-79 that permit them if they provide for preservation maintenance programs for the properties transferring them and if the receiving property is "harmonious" with them.

A statement submitted by the Historic Districts Council at a prior commission meeting maintained that "there is really no way a building so tall could do anything but tower over, eclipse and distract from its neighbors." "Both individual landmarks," the statement continued, "are hardly the dilapidated, abandoned buildings 74-711 and 74-79 were created to help."

The tower would provide MOMA with about 60,000 square feet of space and also contain a 100-room, "seven-star" hotel, and 120 "highest-end residential condominiums."

Another widely praised planned new skyscraper, Alexico's 57-story condo tower designed by Herzog & de Meuron at 56 Leonard Street, was the subject of an article by "Pete: in today's edition of Curbed.com with the headline "Is 56 Leonard Slipping Into a Deep Coma?"

The article said that "the word from the construction gang...is that the fantastical stack of glassy condos, while not yet dead, has been 'shut down,' and that the project will not be revived until either 'March 2009' or 'sometime in 2010.'"