It's downtown development day at Curbed, where we're just overcome by the news that Philippe Starck is transforming 15 Broad Street, the building across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, into a condo called Downtown by Philippe Starck. Says Philippe, "It will be the first fertile place on Wall Street." Ouch. Very ouch. But you have to hand it to the guy?the lobby alone sounds, well, insanely fertile:
Another amenity they will keep is the 1,900-piece Louis XV chandelier... It is to be installed in the Broad Street lobby, hovering inches off the floor, with plasma screens displaying residents' faces interspersed among the crystals... Then, after examining a faceted piece from one of the 250 or so boxes, he pretended to don it as an earring. Moments later, looking over the dull-gold curlicue framework of the chandelier, he instructed a colleague, Mark Davison: "Do it in silver. It will be more magical."
Magic lobby... crystals... giant plasma TVs... swirling faces... Must. Maintain. Tenuous. Toehold. In. Reality.
· Condos, Not Rolltops, on Finance's Holiest Corner [NYTimes]