'Contextual' Tribeca hotel looks like an overbaked cookie

To the Editor:

Along with idling limos, another kind of pollution continues to inflict Tribeca: “contextual” architecture. The latest example is the hotel nearing completion at North Moore and Greenwich Streets, designed by Matt S. Markowitz Architect and SK Architecture. Though part-owned by the developer Robert De Niro, the project received $45 million in Liberty Bonds. Why is a De Niro luxury hotel getting such subsidies? Where’s our affordable housing?

For a long time the building was wrapped à la Christo and I waited with curiosity for the unveiling. My first thought on seeing the naked edifice was, “It’s edible!” The texture and color is that of an overbaked cookie. I imagined a crowd of old Tribeca dwellers—artists who have been ousted from their lofts—encircling the hotel and munching on it until it was reduced to a pile of crumbs. The brick cladding, aside from the more carefully worked neo-Tudor sections, is so crudely laid that in places the mortar is half as wide as the bricks. Parts of the walls are smudgy, and there are even pieces of brick missing. Pink corking fills some of the gaps. It’s “meant to look old,” but the brick walls of old Tribeca buildings are laid with perfect uniformity, their surfaces flat. Of course, unlike its old neighbors, the hotel building isn’t actually constructed of bricks; the bricks are slapped onto the steel and concrete shell, and that’s one of the basic absurdities of Tribeca “contextual.”

The rough bricklaying looks odd next to the industrial, modern windows, especially the penthouse atrium window tucked at the south end, and the curved curtain of windows on the street corner that looks like plastic, not glass. The lumpy, curved corner makes the building a cousin to the 1990s Tribeca Grand Hotel, not a relative of Tribeca’s typically angular geometry. As for mitigating factors, as far as I know the hotel isn’t green, as its surface rusticity might suggest—no solar cells or geothermal heat. Just another luxury development, partly subsidized by the taxpayer.

Contrary to the historic district’s mandate, few of the new Tribeca buildings look well built, much less well finished. Go make a close inspection. Most of these creations stand out as clumsy interlopers because their concept is a fakery, and has nothing to do with architecture as an art. Nothing to do with function, either. The North Moore hotel evokes anything but Tribeca, parts of an Edward Luytens’ country house perhaps, minus the quality. A contemporary building on Hudson Street near Franklin fits better with the surrounding buildings. The “contextual” has been discredited in other countries such as Britain where it’s now rightly seen as a disaster for architecture.

Maybe what we need is a City Architect, as in Barcelona and now London, someone who can watch over the quality of new architecture in New York. That would be the end of the anti-architecture clique whose nonsensical interpretation of Tribeca’s history results in follies like the North Moore hotel.

Carole Ashle 

At Bogardus Triangle, a call for more hands

To the Editor:

Earlier this month, an enthusiastic band of committed garden lovers braved a rainy evening to join the Friends of Bogardus Triangle Viewing Garden for a spring fund-raiser. Hosted by Stephen Harris Architects, the party brought together local businesses, neighbors, friends and supporters to celebrate spring and to renew their commitment to the on-going care and maintenance of the garden.

Many of you have probably walked by the Bogardus Triangle Viewing Garden without realizing that it was not always a swath of verdant nature in the heart of the busy intersection where Hudson Street, West Broadway and Chambers Street meet. 

In fact, the garden was once a dreary, litter-filled traffic triangle. That changed when, in 1997, the Tribeca Community Association, the Department of Transportation and a local architect worked together to secure funding to convert pavement to greenery, and DOT incorporated the creation of a viewing garden into its Hudson Street reconstruction project. Neighbors and friends worked together to transform the triangle into a viewing garden.Children brought plants for annual spring and fall plant days.  

Today, the Bogardus Triangle Viewing Garden is home to many varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees, and it provides community residents and passers-by with a small haven of green in a busy world. 
Small urban gardens like the Bogardus Triangle plot are truly labors of love, dependent on community support to grow and thrive.

The Friends welcome readers’ support and enthusiasm. You can help in so many ways, from joining in our cleanup and planting efforts, to donating plant life, to making a tax-deductible donation. (We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.) Young or old, experienced green thumbs or absolute novices, we need your help!
This fall, we are planning a bulb planting and cleanup day, fun for the whole family. If you are interested in joining us, send your contact information to halbromm@hotmail.com.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Simon Andrews, Nancy Barber,
Hal Bromm, Roger Byrom,
Carole DeSaram, Jordan Tamagni,
John Willenbecher
The Friends of
Bogardus Triangle

From across the pond, a reader praises post-9/11 edition

To the Editor:

I live in northern England, but I check out the Tribeca Trib online as often as possible. I’m always interested in the development of the World Trade Center site. I just want to say that I thought your post-9/11 issue [October 2001], which I downloaded from your website, was a fantastic and very moving tribute. I read every page, every message of sorrow and encouragement.

Although almost five years have passed, that terrible day still seems like yesterday to me (as I’m sure it does to many others). I was at work at the time, and we were all transfixed by the radio until our company allowed us to leave early. When I arrived home I remember just sitting in front of the television unable to comprehend what had happened.

I have been back to New York every year since 9/11 and although I won’t make it this year my plans are to return for the Tribeca Film Festival 2007.

Until then I shall continue to browse the Trib, and continue to observe the developments of Downtown Manhattan from this side of the Atlantic. God bless you all.

Steve Westwood
North Yorkshire
England