via NYU 2031

No one's going to get exactly what they want. But that's the essence of compromise!

This was part of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's message today when he officially announced his support for a scaled-back version of the controversial 20-year expansion plan for New York University.

This latest news is part of an ongoing urban development saga where not-in-my-backyard advocates have clashed dramatically with a powerful university that hopes to grow in the Village, its homebase neighborhood. Elected officials like Stringer have been caught in the middle of the fight, forced to navigate competing interests of preservation, development, and education. For the borough president, who is expected to run for mayor in 2013, taking a stance on NYU is more than an opportunity to influence a project that could fundamentally change the Village -- it's also a chance to start building a platform for his bid to replace Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

More >>

​Yesterday, the AIDS Memorial Park Campaign chose Brooklyn-based Studio a+i as the winner of its design competition for the AIDS memorial park on the old site of the St. Vincent's Hospital. But now, the developer in charge of actually building the park says that they will ignore the results of the contest and move forward with their own design, by landscape architect Rick Parisi.

More >>

​Yeah, we know Manhattan is a really, really crowded place. There's not always a lot of room to build new stuff, but that challenge is not stopping a group of Brooklyn architects from proposing a forest in the West Village. And not just any ole' forest -- but an "infinitely" large one!

Open-space-park-loving New Yorkers rejoice! This morning, the AIDS Memorial Park Campaign announced the winners of its design competition to build a memorial to the AIDS epidemic on the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital -- which shut its doors nearly two years ago in the face of debt.

The redevelopment plan for that site, run by Rudin Management, is working its way through the public review process, last week getting the green light from the City Planning Commission.

More >>

​Nearly two years ago, St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village shut its doors in the face of millions of dollars of debt. The closure strained other hospitals in the city and also paved the way for a large rezoning and redevelopment process on the site.

Today, that development project took a big step forward, earning the approval of the City Planning Commission -- the second to last step in the lengthy public review process required in New York City for projects like this.

The project, under Rudin Management, is a proposed mixed-use development on 7th Ave. between 11th and 12th streets. The buildings, according to City Planning, would contain approximately 450 residential units, around 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 20,000 square feet of medical offices, and, notably, 17,000 square feet of public open space on the triangular parcel of land located west of the East Side.

More >>

A Dutch architecture firm has designed a building in Seoul that has offended some because of its uncomfortable resemblance to the World Trade Center in a cloud of dust and smoke:

MVRDV

​

The project, called "The Cloud," is the work of MVRDV, a firm in Rotterdam. It's intended to be luxury high-rises. This week the firm has issued a statement apologizing for "any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11."

More >>

Remember "the Low Line" -- the proposal to make the 60,000 currently unused square feet of the abandoned trolley terminal on the Lower East Side, under Delancey Street, into something called The Delancey Underground? James Ramsey and Dan Barasch came up with the plan to create a green space there utilizing solar technology, and got a lot of press about it in September. Then, just before Thanksgiving, the MTA took a little tour of the area and posted it on YouTube to show the public what it currently looks like and put out a call for proposals for what it might be.

More >>

​For many Occupy Wall Street Day of Action participants, the highlight of the evening was a series of "bat signal" pro-OWS messages projected on a building bearing Verizon's name.

Yesterday, the Voice's Steven Thrasher wrote about the series of Occupy Wall Street related messages on a building bearing Verizon's name after our own Nick Pinto tweeted about the sighting near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Projected messages included "99%" "Mic Check," "Occupy Earth" and "Love."

While some have speculated that Communications Workers of America were behind the projections on the building, located at 375 Pearl St., a group of visual artists affiliated with OWS are the creators. And while many New Yorkers refer to the structure as "the Verizon Building," it is not owned by the large communications company, but rather to a company called Sabey Data Centers, John Bonomo, director of media relations at Verizon told us in an e-mailed statement today.

More >>

Nick Pinto

​This is pretty amazing. Our Nick Pinto just tweeted out this picture of the Verizon Building near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, where he's covering the Occupy Wall Street march. The march includes workers from the Communications Workers of America, who were out on strike at Verizon and have been working without a contract for some time. We can't imagine Verizon is very happy about having the CWA's message seen on the side of their building. (We must admit, however, that the scary, largely windowless part of the building seems to have a better purpose now as a screen.)

More >>

Steven Thrasher

​Yesterday, we wrote about how from the middle of Sixth Avenue in the West Village, you can get a view that is eerily reminiscent of what the Twin Towers looked like from the same spot a decade ago.

The optical illusion is created by the pairing of the Trump SoHo Tower and the still-under-construction One World Trade. From this unique point in the city, the two buildings appear to be next to each other and to be the same size.

But how close are they? And how alike are they, really?

More >>

Steven Thrasher

​Crossing Sixth Avenue at 11th Street this afternoon, it was impossible not to notice. At its current stage of construction, One World Trade appears to be the same height and size as the Trump SoHo Tower. Together, the two create a view that looks eerily like the pre-9/11 World Trade Center from this intersection.

More >>