Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:00:00 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Carter B. Horsley :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Carter+B.+Horsley istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/the-fillips-that-take-buildings-from-merely/86569/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It's the fillips, or flourishes, that really count in the great paintings. Those grand curlicues of putti-protecting clouds; those diaphanous veils that encircle half-shell Venuses; those gilded glimmers from the orderly chests of beribboned, medaled warriors. For architects, however, the real badges of honor are often more obscure: a fusillade of endless doors, a few unnecessary flying buttresses, and other small details that separate the genius from the merely wonderful. Two such occurrences... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/supporting-cast/86104/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Caryatids, those stately maidens holding up the porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens, and their male counterparts, known as Atlantes or Telemones, are obvious means of humanizing architecture. In our increasingly virtual and animated world of superheroines, superheroes, and supervillains — and in an architectural era that is becoming decreasingly rectilinear — such curvaceous and brawny embellishments may once again become popular. The city's most dramatic caryatids are atop the... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/get-a-grip/85614/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Some say you can tell a person's character by the way they shake your hand. Well, something similar may also be the case with buildings: Show me a store or home with an unusual doorknob, and the odds are that what's inside will be interesting. Given the city's fascination with fashion, it is surprising how little attention has been given by designers and architects to the lowly doorknob. The vast majority of fashion boutiques feature doorknobs that are simple globes, bars, or thumb latches. In... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/let-the-light-shine-in-skylight-art-and-drama/85184/ Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The ideal art studio is north-facing, with high ceilings and large, angled windows that provide plenty of natural light without allowing in the burning rays that can alter pigments and fade furniture. The double-wide brownstone at 20 W. 10th St. has two such apartments; the great architectural draftsman Hugh Ferriss once occupied one, and the great Art Deco painter Guy Pène du Bois called the other home. The key to the beautiful light is the skylights, and there are several similar skylights in... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/ramping-it-up-when-stepping-right-up-isnt/84818/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan recently sent out letters to notify some of the city's most important landlords that certain buildings were not accessible to people with disabilities, and therefore discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act passed in 1988. This important dispute is centered on making apartment interiors accessible to the disabled, and does not address the very widespread existence of stepped building entrances that are difficult for the disabled to navigate. Some... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/in-the-groove/84326/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Pierre Hotel, on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, recently closed for renovations, and the northernmost of its two canopied entrances is now boarded up. Designed by Schultz & Weaver and erected in 1929, the Neo-Renaissance-style Pierre is notable for its large, green mansard roof and its light beige brick façade, above a one-story rusticated limestone base. Rustication, a bold, rectilinear patterning in stone that usually is applied to the lower part of a building, is... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/pinball-wizards-in-the-sky/83829/ Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST New York City has two of the world's most famous illuminated towers, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, and in recent years, it has added a few more: the Bear Stearns tower at 383 Madison Ave., One Beacon Court at 151 E. 58th St., and the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The Eighth Avenue corridor in Midtown is highlighted by the glowing pyramid top of World Wide Plaza, designed in 1989 by David Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. That huge tower has been joined... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/the-citys-thriving-bollard-crop/83342/ Thu, 7 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Bollards are short poles or stands that serve many purposes: They are used to moor ships and as traffic markers, antiterrorist barriers, and street furniture upon which people can perch, lean, or sit. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, bollards blossomed around the city and especially in Lower Manhattan, with bronze-colored blocks prohibiting vehicular entrance to Wall Street at Broadway, and thin black poles lining the sidewalk around various buildings, including 140 Broadway... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/communal-balconies-as-urban-verandas/82965/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Balconies are a common feature of many Manhattan apartment buildings, but communal balconies, which are popular in Europe, are quite rare here in New York. While regular balconies have a staccato visual effect, communal balconies are urban verandas and prominent architectural features that can tie together separate buildings and even provide an escape to other apartments in emergencies. The most attractive example in Manhattan is the English Terrace Row, designed by the architect of St... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/clip-ons-for-buildings-the-real-thing/82516/ Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Successfully tying a bow tie is an elusive feat, and many a young man in formal attire on prom night resorts to a clip-on. It's not the real thing, of course, but it looks fine and saves a lot of frustrating moments. In buildings, clip-ons are the real thing. Usually involving new glass façades, real estate clip-ons not only provide an aesthetic improvement, but also help financially by reducing energy costs and improving the building's "brand." In 2005, when Fendi relocated to 677 Fifth Ave... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/raising-the-roof-in-new-york-city/82028/ Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Raising the roof in New York City does not always mean it is party time. Five of the 26 items on the calendar for the next meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission involve rooftop additions. Rooftop additions can prove controversial, as was the case when Landmarks recently sent back to the drawing board a proposal for a Sir Norman Foster-designed, 22-story glass tower above 980 Madison Ave. It did the same for a plan to tack on a substantial addition to the two-story building at 746... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/a-soft-touch-and-some-shade/81540/ Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Most pre-war apartment buildings did not have air-conditioning when they were erected, so window awnings were often employed to cast shade on apartment windows and reduce heat. The cloth awnings added soft touches to the hard masonry façades. Early photographs indicate that in many luxury buildings, the awnings were widely employed, adding a deeper dimensionality to their façades and, in many cases, more color. In Andrew Alpern's excellent "New York's Fabulous Luxury Apartments: With Original... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/bulging-buildings-cantilevers-make-a-comeback/81175/ Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Cantilevers, among the showiest feats of architecture, are resurgent in the city. The new Graceline Court, at 106 W. 116th St., is a prominent example of the architectural feature, characterized by beams supported only at one end. The modern, mid-block, 16-story tower, designed by Feder & Stia, looms partially over the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque. A far more dramatic cantilever can be found at the Linden 78, a 20-story condominium building designed by Handel & Associates and now under construction... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/fling-open-the-shutters/80711/ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Shutters adorn many of the city's older townhouses and industrial buildings. They are meant to provide protection against the elements, and are also used for privacy. When they are louvered, they can provide adjustable daylighting. Of late, shutters have been making a comeback. There is Shigeru Ban's Metal Shutter Houses, a residential condominium under construction at 524 W. 19th St. in Chelsea. Its "shutters" open vertically, like many garage doors. Earlier this month, the Landmarks... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/for-the-birds/80317/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST At 907 Fifth Ave., on the southeast corner of 72nd Street across from Central Park, at least 10 roosts for sparrows are nestled in the balustrades under the third-floor windows. These sparrows have flown under the radar, despite a storm of controversy about the city's most famous avian resident, Pale Male, a red-tail hawk that was evicted in 2004 from his regal roost atop the center window of the top floor of 927 Fifth Ave., two blocks to the north. The battle over Pale Male's nest, which was... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/window-parking/79858/ Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Got a lot of packages? Tired or winded? Need a tan? Want to read a book alfresco? Want to people-watch? What you need, of course, is a nice, ground-floor window ledge, a very rare commodity. Such ledges are not the only recourse, but in a city as crowded as New York, one might think a reservation is sometimes needed to sit on the steps in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which are now being redone, or to munch lunch along the polished granite corners of the plaza in front of the Seagram... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/the-romance-of-ruins/79326/ Thu, 5 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Renwick Ruins near the southern tip of Roosevelt Island are among the city's most dramatic pile of architecture. Commanding a majestic view of Manhattan, the structure is the ghostly remains of the 1856 Smallpox Hospital that was designed by James Renwick Jr. (1818-95), the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, the "English Terrace" row of townhouses sharing a common second-floor balcony on 10th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and the Smithsonian Institution and... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/blooming-buildings/78847/ Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Friendly faces in windows or on fire escapes make for kind, lovable neighborhoods, according to Jane Jacobs's brand of urban understanding. Just imagine what friendly faces admiring their blooming window flower boxes can do. Unfortunately, flower boxes have not yet entered the official real estate agent's "amenity" blue book — or should we say "green book?" They are found only irregularly on elegant townhouses and not-so-elegant tenement buildings. Turning the tide toward increased flower boxes... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/and-the-kitchen-sink/76883/ Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Some developers try to cram every conceivable amenity into their residential condominium projects — garage rooms, cabanas, libraries, billiards rooms, storage rooms, fitness centers — in an effort to corral buyers. There was a time, though, when developers sought to dazzle their neighbors and inspire civic pride by slapping everything in the proverbial architectural "kitchen sink" onto the outside of their buildings — arches, cartouches, bandcourses, cornices, gargoyles. There are plenty of... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/abs-of-steel/76487/ Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Survival of the fittest is the often the best way to describe life in the highly competitive world of luxury residential condominium development. That may explain why a couple of new towers have "abs" — protruding elements on a building's façade that indicate strength and good health, and not, of course, the midriffs bared at fitness centers. Two new towers showing off abs are Platinum, at 247 W. 46th St., and the Atelier, at 635 W. 42nd St. One of the city's most prolific architects of... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/filling-the-voids/76101/ Thu, 8 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Pediments are the arched designs that top buildings, windows, or doors, typically in the form of shallow triangles, while broken pediments are open at the top where the two angled sides would meet. The city's most famous broken pediment is atop the Sony Building at 550 Madison Ave. Philip Johnson made newspaper front pages when he designed it for the original owner, AT&T. The building is sometimes referred to as having a Chippendale top, a reference to the 18th-century English furniture... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/accentuating-the-vertical/75679/ Thu, 1 May 2008 00:00:00 EST In the old days, a glimpse of architectural piers — the vertical supporting structures that were once a common sight on the façade of a skyscraper — sent one's spirits soaring. The popularity of piers began in the Art Deco era with Raymond Hood's American Radiator Building at 40 W. 40th St. in 1924. In 1930, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon applied thin stainless-steel piers to the limestone façade of the Empire State Building, while Schwartz & Gross designed 55 Central Park West, and Emery Roth designed... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/all-deliveries-here/74829/ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Some of the world's most fabled and uppity apartment buildings don't give much respect to people who use the service entrance, which is rather curious, if not downright undemocratic. One conjures a liveried, capped, and scowling guardian at the front door with his arm raised and pointing away: Scat! Of course, in our gracious city such snooty behavior does not curry much favor with delivery men, tradesmen, porters, supers, and the like. Many service entrances at luxury buildings are invisible... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/keeping-the-witches-at-bay/74500/ Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Tall and slender, finials are employed in architecture to add drama to the edges or tops of buildings. Imagine a spear sticking straight up out of the ground, or an uncarved totem pole, or even a periscope without a twist at the top. They are the exclamation points of architecture! According to an entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.com, "an architectural finial can also function as a lightning rod, and was once believed to act as a deterrent to witches on broomsticks." While they... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/sanctuary-from-the-elements/74090/ Thu, 3 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Building arcades, famous in Paris, where they line the bases of most buildings along the Rue de Rivoli, are rare in New York. While the city has flirted with plaza designs in an effort to expand open spaces in dense neighborhoods, it has not focused on arcades, though they are ideal for providing widened pedestrian areas. Still, Manhattan does boast some of these architectural gems, and perhaps their most ardent lovers are the smokers at office buildings, who have been forced outdoors in recent... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/setting-the-stage-at-the-front-door/70893/ Thu, 7 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST To proclaim power and prestige, some architects add marquees to buildings. Like canopies, marquees signal building entrances, but they are less prone to grime and the slings and arrows of Manhattan's strong winds. They are also more permanent and expensive. Marquees come in different shapes and sizes, and are important sculptural elements of building architecture. At 55 Central Park South, the large marquee is a bold depiction of the peaked and fluted verticality of the Art Deco building, which... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/curved-buildings-softening-the-edges-of-the-city/70555/ Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST The rectilinear street grid north of Washington Square may not be so conducive to curved buildings, but curves are among the most interesting architectural details in the city, and they are making something of a comeback. One new structure that horizontally undulates its main façade is One Kenmore Square, designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects in 2006. This building is not as prominent, however, as One Astor Place, the freestanding, sinuously curved glass apartment tower designed by Gwathmey... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/why-be-square/70129/ Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST The curves of circular windows conjure voluptuous softness, a quality that is missing from a lot of rectilinear architecture. In some cases, such as at 141 Fifth Ave., the oculi, as these windows are known, reinforce curves elsewhere on the building. Originally built for Merchants Bank of New York, the property includes a dome dotted with numerous oculi designed by Robert Maynicke in 1897. A residential conversion is being carried out by Cetra/Ruddy. Manhattan has many oculi, some simple and... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/future-of-skybridges-up-in-the-air/69690/ Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST In cities such as Minneapolis and Milwaukee, skybridges are designed to offer pedestrians shelter from the cold; in Houston, they are designed to offer pedestrians and workers shelter from the humidity. New Yorkers are a hardy breed, mostly impervious to such climatic concerns. Still, most like to take the shortest route to get where they are going, and so the city has a few skybridges snuggled between its edifices to facilitate the scurrying masses. Several were erected years ago, and are now... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/keeping-out-the-masses-keeping-in-the-few/69279/ Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Gates are intimidating portals usually meant to keep out hoi polloi (the masses) and keep in the pit bulls. Occasionally, they can be grand, befitting hoi oligoi (the few), and in this deluxe era it is not surprising that such gates are rising in Manhattan. Two vaulted entrances to the courtyard of the Belnord apartment building, which occupies a full block between 86th and 87th streets, Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, feature new gates. The black metal gates, designed by Page Ayres Cowley... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/light-touch/68855/ Thu, 3 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Many New Yorkers enjoy "bishop's crook" streetlights and are happy that the old favorites are reappearing as replacements for the minimalist "goose-necks" in some neighborhoods. One problem: These lights, which overhang streets rather than sidewalks, mostly benefit cars, not pedestrians, and they are certainly not optimal for neighborhood residents. One solution is mounting lights on, as opposed to in, individual buildings. Sadly, not every building has an illuminated top, to say nothing of an... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/cornices-extend-buildings-to-the-heavens/68645/ Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Architects have long pondered how best to signify that their building has stopped its penetration into the heavens, and the most popular means they have employed is the cornice, a protruding element that overhangs the building's façade. This element is usually not too tall, so as not to seem ungainly, and not too deep, so as not to appear too dangerous or cast too large a shadow. Cornices, like most architectural elements, come in a variety of shapes and designs, but most are quite detailed and... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/stoked-hearth/68413/ Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST In the days before environmental concerns became widespread, it was not unusual to see large puffs of black smoke rising from incinerators in the city's apartment buildings. Nowadays, such flagrant pollution of the air is rare in the city, thanks, no doubt, to the wonders of recycling. Smaller puffs of gray smoke, however, are sometimes discernible from chimneys in buildings with wood-burning fireplaces — perhaps the most desirable apartment amenity. In some cases, roofs may have a large... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/brief-history-of-escutcheons/68028/ Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST If you have ever sent your knights into battle carrying shields emblazoned with your family's crest or your domain's colors, you will easily understand escutcheons. They are nothing other than stone embodiments of your shields or crests. In some Italian towns, you can still see colorful escutcheons high on a palazzo's stucco façade. In New York, however, the preferred color is gray, usually in limestone or, more rarely, terracotta, and the preferred "field" is blank, more often than not. The... CARTER B. HORSLEY http://www.nysun.com/real-estate/folly-of-addresses/67216/ Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Perhaps some numerologists understand the hierarchy of street addresses, but for most New Yorkers, there is little magic. Many of the best buildings are known by their names, not their numbers, including Riverhouse at 435 E. 52nd St., and the Time Warner Center, which has a variety of Columbus Circle addresses, depending on whether one is looking for an office, a hotel, an apartment, or a store. A low number, of course, indicates that a building is close to the beginning, which might be a good...