9inety North 5th, 90 North 5th Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 90 North 5th Street by Carter Horsley

The exterior of the five-story residential condominium building at 90 North 5th Street in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is quite energetic and conjures a grisaille Rubic's Cube, the immensely popular, brightly-colored, pocketable puzzle of movable squares, a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ern¿ Rubik.

It is not kinetic, of course, but its front façade somewhat resembles the fine abstract paintings of Sean Scully. Some parts are setback and some jut out as balconies. It is simple, but quite dynamic.

It offers no hint, however, of the fireworks inside.

The lobby has a 45-foot-long waterfall in a long hall in which are hung a red chandelier, a green chandelier and a blue chandelier and that hall leads to a large rear garden in which they are stone slab-sculptures of two figures next to some very brightly colored furniture.

If that doesn't spin the postman, then the large, free-standing circular partition containing the mail boxes might.

Naturally, such a humorous approach to life and architecture led curbed.com to run an item about the building June 30, 2009, entitled "Inside the Craziest New Building in Williamsburg."

The building also has bathrooms with boldly checquered marble floors and walls, a quite elegant treatment.

All of this razzle-dazzle comes from the sketchpads of Robert M. Scarano Jr., perhaps the busiest architect in the city's history, or at least Brooklyn's. Such hyperactivity, of course, could not last and in 2009, Mr. Scarano was told by the city's Department of Buildings he could no longer "certify" that his plans were in conformance with city regulations as a result of its unhappiness with some of his plans. He gave a talk in this building about his enforced "retirement," which he felt was a bit unfair.

Not everyone is thrilled with all of Scarano's designs and he and his main architectural rival in the borough, Karl Fischer, have rattled a lot of design cages and produced a remarkable assemblage of buildings, the general likes of which have not been seen in Manhattan. While they are not earth-shattering candidates for Pritzker Prize recognition, they have radically transformed much of northwestern Brooklyn with their eclectic arrangements of building blocks.

One may not walk around Williamsburg in awe, but it's pretty hard not to break a smile now and then and that's not a bad thing. Actually, humor is a pretty hard thing for architects and many community activists who clearly have not remembered Khigh Diegh's advice to one of his assassin/henchmen in the film "The Manchurian Candidate": "always with a sense of humor." Mr. Diegh was a prominent radio personality on the subject of parapsychology in real life.

The building has 23 apartments, a fitness center, a garage, and a recreation room.

Aaron Gertz was the developer.