MIDTOWN/MIDTOWN WEST?Last week, four architecture firms presented mindboggling, grandiose, rendering-porn-fiilled plans for a new Penn Station if Madison Square Garden weren't there. Looking back at some notes taken during the presentations, we realized that Penn as it stands today got pummeled with a string of pretty biting disses from some pretty high-profile people. To wit, Hugh Hardy delicately called it an "unappealing place" in a "less than inspiring part of town"; Charles Renfro of DS+R alluded to it as a "postwar blight." More than one speaker quoted the historian Vincent Scully, who said that while commuters and visitors once entered New York like a god, "one scuttles in now like a rat." With all that hate goin' around, maybe it's not surprising that the Alliance for a New Penn Station picked up some new supporters this week, including Barry Diller, Bette Midler, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. [CurbedWire Inbox; previously]
LONG ISLAND CITY?Turns out that the towers of waterfront condos in LIC are where the party's at for Fourth of July weekend. (It's also apparently full of advance planners.) Writes a tipster: "In the boutique condo where I'm (and 80% of tenants) are renting a neighbor posted the following, and I'm not sure whether to go back to my college days or to be seriously afraid of drunken people falling of the roof or through the corridors or leaving the door open after the doormen have left: 'July 3rd, I will be using the rooftop for a little party... please feel free to come up... college style... DJ, Kegs, Ice Luge, good times... please bring ID so I can not check it at the door hahaha.'" OMG, is LIC the new Murray Hill? If you've got any more intel on this disturbing trend or any others, please do hit up the tipline. [CurbedWire Inbox]
Loading comments...