New-build classical architecture (evoking old styles)

^The “modern” building on the right ruins the block - what a shame!
 
bdurden said:
^The “modern” building on the right ruins the block - what a shame!
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It says in the article that it was demolished due to a plane crash in the 60’s lol 😮😮. Thats friggin nuts, I wish I knew the back story on that one. Must have been a single engine or something but still you dont hear about that happening every day.
 
Crazy, a midair collision between a DC-8 and a Lockheed Constellation (jet vs prop). 44 fatalities between the planes, 6 more on the ground. The second plans made it to Staten Island before crashing into a field. Apparently Edmund Hillary was booked on one of the flights but got to the airport late. Wild story.

en.wikipedia.org

1960 New York mid-air collision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Justbuildit said:
Crazy, a midair collision between a DC-8 and a Lockheed Constellation (jet vs prop). 44 fatalities between the planes, 6 more on the ground. The second plans made it to Staten Island before crashing into a field. Apparently Edmund Hillary was booked on one of the flights but got to the airport late. Wild story.

en.wikipedia.org

1960 New York mid-air collision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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Wow yea what a back story on that one. Thats insane.


-I was reading a globe article today about towns that are experimenting with vienna style social housing in the US and they mentioned a development in rockville md. So being curious I went to take a look in google earth and came across an absolute art deco gem which was recently built in the town center. Theyre trying to repair their urban renewal bulldozed downtown, and I must say some of the additions are home runs.

Great to see things like this filling in old urban renewal scars around the country.

Blvd fourty four
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The new cambria hotel built next door.
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Other infill close by
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Heres the globe article I was reading that brought me there.
https://archive.ph/mKzsL
 
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Shame we can't get quality architecture like that in Boston... instead we mostly get Elkus offset window slop and alucobond.
 
393b40 said:
Shame we can't get quality architecture like that in Boston... instead we mostly get Elkus offset window slop and alucobond.
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The new development in the surrounding DC metro area is such a conundrum to me. Its very dense, its good quality, and it looks good, but the road networks its being built on is the normal suburban disconnected shitshow. So youre ending up with all of these random dense little clusters plopped all over the place that arent connected to eachother, and many only have one road in and out to the existing suburban road network. Its so weird. Theyre getting most of the pieces right, but then the road network is a complete disaster.

They really should have created an overarching masterplan first of how the road networks were going to be built and connected together, preferably some type of grid, and then filled it in with development from there. Instead theyre just doing it the normal piecemeal way its done in the suburbs and its creating the weirdest development patterns that look nice and are dense, but arent walkable, bikeable, or mixed use which ends up with basically all the same problems as normal sprawling single family suburban sub divisions.


Heres a new neighborhood in maryland right outside dc. Very dense, townhomes, should be good right?


Looks nice at street level.


Then you zoom out and its just like what in gods name?


Another one in maryland, very dense new development.


Lots of garages, but its a nice neighborhood and its very dense.


Zoom out and its just… record scratch.


Suburban virginia by dulles is a whole other nightmare. TONS of development going on out there. Very dense, theres even a local street grid they built out for this one.


The houses look good from street level.


And then zoom out and its just a spaghetti bowl shit show of who the hell knows whats going on. They even built a new heavy rail extension out this way, so theres so many things that should be making this very successful. The mishmash of suburban roads though is really doing a lot of damage though to the overall cohesion of the area.


Its definitely good that a huge amount of development is happening, but we should be able to do much better than this. This is the problem with doing piecemeal developments. Its ironic that its outside D.C. because D.C. is the perfect example of how laying down the street grid first is the most important step. In D.C., NYC, Philly, Savannah…etc the first thing they did was lay out the street grid. In many cases thats all they did. Then the developers filled in the rest over time.

The road network is soo important because its the arteries and circulatory system of a city, and once theyre laid down theyre almost impossible to change later when each house has its own property rights. Its so important to get it right the first time. They really need to find a way to have an overarching masterplan for the road network, or this is going to just continue forever. Now that all of these horrible road networks are laid out theyre going to be there for hundreds of years. If they could have build a real street grid its much easier to densify more and more as time goes on, but these suburban road layouts are built in place and very hard to densify later on. I’m not sure how they would be able to fix this, but they cant keep going about development this way because its making the road network an absolute disaster.
 
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I second your confusion. Additionally, Virginia is going hod-wild with dense TOD. Yet, it's all the same stroads and subdivisions! We are so close, yet so far.
 
Arlington and Alexandria seem to have struck the right level of urbanism along with Bethesda, MD.
It seems like the rest of the DMV towns struggle with a hodgepodge of new urbanism and altogether suburban sprawl.
 
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France is doing a wonderful job of demolishing a lot of their 1950’s style housing towers that make up so much of the suburbs of paris and rebuilding them in a haussmann inspired style that expands the beloved architecture of the core of paris further and further out. Its not all luxury either theres lots of affordable, public housing, and market rate units throughout.


“Pontoise, France. A blueprint for new towns

This is a new piece of town built around a train station. Used to be surface parking, now homes, businesses and shops

Most residential parking is underground and with its excellent location not as many people choose to have vehicles”

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Link



Plus a wonderful new development in brooklyn, fort greene five.

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Link
 
Pretty renders - how do they look in actuality? Reminds me of the Parisian style blocks in Baku.
 
^^ Sheesh, why can't we do that in Boston? We're certainly quite a bit richer than the Paris suburbs on a per capita basis, so it's BS to say it's financials.

Next big hunk of land we divvy up ... the Allston railyards, Widett Circle, whatever ... once, just once, can we not do super-blocks and 5-9 story alucobond and glass buildings?
 
There will be a 97 year old activist who has done nothing since the 1960s but scream about changes in the neighborhood, who will be co-opted by a brain dead city councilor who will sniff out a bike lane issue, and then there will be a demand for only single houses and infinite parking and the compromise will be a dreary 5-over-1 in with no transit or anything within walking distance, and then everyone will complain the the units have no "soul" and are too expensive. Rinse and repeat.

Or we can upzone and not give any of these people a say in the matter.

I'd love to have something in this style, even something unique and creative. Alas.
 
Loses the appeal with the huge asymmetrical window panes for me. Otherwise, looks pretty good.
 
Finally one of these neo art deco buildings is going to come with a spire. Been waiting to see when it would happen.

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Gramercy - 38 Gramercy Park East
20 floors
Residential


“Legion Investment Group and Gindi Capital have closed on the final parcels of an assemblage at 38 Gramercy Park East in Manhattan, paving the way for Legion to develop a ground-up residential condominium building. The structure will be the first new condo building on Gramercy Park in a century, according to the developer.

Legion’s acquisition in this deal includes the five-story 37 Gramercy Park East and a co-op at 38 Gramercy Park North. They are the final pieces of the puzzle that will allow the company to develop a 20-story building with a Gramercy Park address, which will give residents of that building access to the two-acre Gramercy Park.…”

https://www.multihousingnews.com/acquisition-clears-way-for-gramercy-park-building/

Building being replaced:
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