Another dawn greets the shrouded 2 Columbus Circle (seen above via Landmark West's ShameCam), but today is not like other days for this Venetian Gothic un-landmark. Today the world is split in two: between those who made it to the end of the Times' sorta kinda ex-architecture critic Herbert Muschamp's 5500-word screed on why the lollipops mattered ? and those who did not. Among those who presumably did, here are some snap reviews of the wide-ranging piece, which argued, among dozens of other things, for landmarking based on social history:
1) "Herbert Muschamp returns to the pages of the Times today with a rambling, stream-of-consciousness reflection on Edward Durell Stone's 2 Columbus Circle, claiming it as an icon for New York's 1960s gay culture. How this tiring and somewhat senseless article ? actually, more of a diary entry ? slipped past the Arts editor, I have no idea." [Progressive Reactionary]
2) "I had one of those rare, wonderful moments of excitement at reading something revelatory and important last night. ... Muschamp is essentially putting on paper ideas that (for me, anyway) existed only in the air, uncaptured, uncoalesced, undocumented." [Pondblog]
3) "Herbert Muschamp’s tenure ... was often marked by excess and star worship. But the article he’s contributed today ... is insightful and tragic. Muschamp recognizes that a building as significant to New Yorkers as this one deserves to be protected by the city ? whether or not it is 'good architecture.'" [That Brutal Joint]
· The Secret History of 2 Columbus Circle [NYT]
· 2 Columbus Circle ShameCam [Curbed]