As part of its $1 million renovation, the old Edgar Allen Poe house at 2640 Grand Concourse in the Bronx got a new 2,700-square-foot visitors' center just 80 feet away. And it's new not just in the construction sense: designed by Toshiko Mori, the visitors' center does not remotely resemble the Poe house or the Parks Department equipment storage bunker that previously stood on the site. What it does resemble is the rendering, at least judging by the Journal's photo of the newly-completed structure. The Journal also gives the project more of a thumbs-up than earlier critics: "The effect is successfully unsettling, lending the building a peltlike texture. With a dip in the dark standing-seam metal, the roof gets a winglike lift that, underlit at dusk, conjures a certain blackbird." As for the interior, the bathroom tiles are patterned with a digital portrait of Poe's face, because that's not creepy at all.
· A Visitor Center in the Bronx Where Edgar Allen Poe Heard a Knocking [WSJ]
· Edgar Allen Poe's Old Cottage Gets Wacky Visitor Center [Curbed]
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