A group calling itself The Coalition for Responsible Midtown Development, a branch of the neighborhood block association surrounding New York’s Museum of Modern Art, has put up its dukes and is ready to scrap. The coalition has created a website to collect opinions and criticism of MoMA’s projected Jean Nouvel tower, currently awaiting approval and already making a nuisance. All the dirt and video proof after the jump.
The fight originates over the Pritzker Prize-winning architect‘s design for a 75-story skyscraper that will reach a soaring 1,250 vertical feet (the approximate height of the Empire State Building). Despite zoning regulations that prohibit such out-of-context building heights, any developer worth his salt can find loopholes in the law thanks to the purchase of air rights.
Understandably, the neighbors are peeved because the Nouvel tower will be constructed on a lot “the size of a McDonald’s drive-thru,” on a street in midtown where 12 landmarked buildings already reside. Describing the project as a “catastrophe that goes far behind five years of construction,” protesters argue that the skyscraper will create a dark “cavern” on West 54th and 55th Streets all the way to Rockefeller Center.
Renderings of the Jean Nouvel tower for MoMA
Recent board approvals at the City Planning Commission may mean the issue has a foregone conclusion. Tell us, where do you stand in this case, as Nouvel’s cutting-edge architecture pits the quality of life of the neighborhood residents against a world-class cultural institution?
Comments (4)
What does he mean when he says 'quality of life'? From the video it seemed to be about traffic and light. Doesn't really warrant the use of the term 'apartheid', I would instead call it merely a conflict of interests.
The design is hideous, all effects to the human landscape aside. What is MOMA thinking??
It is 84 stories, not 75. The zoning laws of the City were enacted in part to prevent the narrow side streets, as opposed to wide avenues, from becoming dark caverns where very tall buildings prevent air and light from reaching the people on the sidewalk. The Nouvel Tower as it is now designed, will cast shadows into Central Park! Is it a conflict of interest to subject a mixed commercial and residential area to 44 months [almost 6 years] of construction time which is the estimate of the developer-and what construction job is ever finished on time? The same neighbors just lived through several years of the MoMA expansion construction. The building is the same height as the Empire State which is at the intersection of Fifth and 34th Streets, both very wide streets, on a much greater size lot. The traffic now is a big problem; with one lane closed on both W 53 and W 54 for 44 months to accommodate construction materials and vehicles, it will be worse. The lst time MoMA added new gallery space about 4 years ago, attendance increased by 700,00 per yr. The Nouvel Tower will contain the same amount of new MoMA gallery space, 40,000 sq feet.
Go Nouvell!
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