Here now, answers to Tuesday's questions about development and destruction around town asked by actual Curbed readers. Got a question about what's going on with something in your neighborhood? Email tips@curbed.com; bonus points for attaching a digital photo.
HELL'S PANTRY—A reader inquired about the structure going up at 11th Avenue and 40th Street. A sharp-eyed commenter points out that the mega-storage shed on the far west side is the cut-rate version of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center expansion. In fact, it's what's left of the first ambitious plan to totally revamp the original 1986 Pei Cobb Freed and Partners design, now too small and leaking too much. Those changes were announced way back in the glory days of 2006. It was to be done up by Richard Rogers and friends, but the $1.7 billion scheme got downsized and then scuttled when a certain gallivanting governor left town, and the whole kit and kaboodle was downgraded from a crap-tastic "Shit, this could be amazing!" to a dispiriting, "Fuck, not another one of those." The projected cut-rate cost of $463 million delivers some much needed fixes and a tad of "temporary" space, namely this big barn covering a full city block brought to us by the crew at the Empire State Development Corporation.
· Rumblings and Bumblings: What's Going to Hell [Curbed]
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