Can it be true that 56 Leonard Street is being put on ice? The uber-luxe 57-story Tribeca condo project from Herzog & de Meuron opened a schnazzy show room this fall. By mid-November the foundation had been poured. But now the word from the construction gang at the very busy and newly-glassed New York Law School Library project going up next door at 40 Leonard Street is that the fantastical stack of glassy condos, while not yet dead, has been "shut down," and that the project will not be revived until either "March 2009" or "sometime in 2010." Further confirmation of the near-death notice comes from a little bird over at StreetEasy. There the song is somewhat sadder, claiming that KSW, a mechanical services company out of Long Island City, has been "directed not to perform any further work on the 56 Leonard Street Project ... they had been notified by the owner that the Project has been placed on hold."
The nasty winter doldrums might be infecting other nearby sites as well. Around the corner from 56 Leonard, along an old cobbled lane, the work at "downshifted" Five Franklin Place seems to have frozen at the 2nd Floor, which went up around the beginning of November. Since then the bendy Ben van Berkel site has seen nothing but quiet. Neither Five Franklin nor 56 Leonard seems to be ready for reading of the last rites. And it's in the spirit of the season to be hopeful. We can only wonder which of these two projects will be the first to be revived. Prayers, potions and charms invoking resuscitation would not be out of order.
· 56 Leonard Street coverage [Curbed]
· Five Franklin Place coverage [Curbed]
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