The controversial centerpiece of NYU's Greenwich Village expansion plan (which is pretty much all controversial in its own right), the 40-story "Pinwheel Tower", is stepping out of the shadows ahead of an epic fight for survival. NYU wants to drop the hotel/faculty housing building on the Bleecker Street side of I.M. Pei's landmark Silver Towers complex, completing the set of four. Early renderings were released, but today the Wall Street Journal shows off something a bit more advanced from Grimshaw Architects. (UPDATE: Additional renderings in the gallery above).
The Pinwheel is concrete, like Pei's creations, but with floor-to-ceiling windows. The "moderate-priced" hotel rooms on the first 15 floors (there are 38 occupied floors total) are meant for visiting NYU dignitary, but will also be available to the public. You know what Greenwich Village preservationists hate more than big new towers? Big new hotel towers! An hey, speaking of new NYU towers, we haven't heard a good rumor about one in nearly 24 hours. Oh wait, here we go.
East Village soccer football mecca Nevada Smiths is looking to expand to bigger digs, and the bar's manager tells The Villager that he thinks NYU will flatten the bar's current location at 74 Third Avenue and its neighbors (we assume the movie theater on the corner of 11th Street would be spared) to build something big. That's not in NYU's 2031 plan, and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's Andrew Berman isn't quite buying that it's NYU behind the plot, but he notes that there's currently a rezoning measure for this very strip of land making its way through official channels, just in case.
· Is taking over soccer mecca N.Y.U.’s latest go-o-o-o-oal!? [The Villager]
· First Look at NYU Tower Plan [WSJ]
· NYU Expansion coverage [Curbed]
Loading comments...