ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[David Morris]

On 3/21/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
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> I didn't feel any reluctance to criticize the towers aesthetically as a NYC resident from 1960 to 1991, nor do I now -- but let's not drape too much nostalgia over pre-WTC Manhattan, either. Sky-scraping scale had been the mode for more than 75 years when those towers went up, and filing-cabinet high-modern boxiness since Lever House.

Sure, the graceful spires of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings
are beautiful.  But the Lever House was far superior a high-modern box
that the WTC towers, for many reasons (which I'll not list).  Most
architects agreed that the WTC was at best mediocre design, and not
because of their height/scale.

David Morris

> By my reckoning, the city was "taken over by the rapacious real estate
> industry" by the mid-19th century at the latest (cf the rise of the Astor
> and Vanderbilt fortunes). There were plenty of robber baronets and vulgar
> Trumpets behind the Woolworth building, Empire State, Chrysler, Carnegie (!)
> Hall, the Dakota, and most of the city's other iconic buildings.
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> Because "olde" is, of course, a moving target. Back when Rev. Beecher roamed
> Brooklyn, people lamented how one fine old tree-shaded manse after another
> was falling to rows of cookie-cutter buildings in that cheap "brownstone"
> barged down from Connecticut by the megaton. Now, of course, brownstone
> neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights are traditional, atmospheric, the very
> soul of New York as it always was...
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> -Monte <time to re-read "The Night the Old Nostalgia Burned Down">
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