Open Space in Midtown

I came up off the subway at 42nd and Broadway yesterday afternoon, turned down 42nd Street, and immediately noticed a huge swath of open space in midtown manhattan.

You don't see that very often and when you do, its a great experience.

I love New York, but it lacks the grand plazas of european cities and there isn't enough light in the major commercial centers.

The Gotham Gal and Josh did a school trip to the Wall Street area yesterday and she said it was freezing.  Well it was in the mid 60s in NYC yesterday so I was surprised.  She told me, "there's no sunlight down there."

Well there isn't much sunlight in midtown either, but at the intersection of 6th Avenue and 42nd street, there is plenty of sunlight right now.  You've got Bryant Park to the south and east and this huge half block wide swath of open space to the north and west.

I honestly can't remember seeing such a huge construction lot in midtown.  I wonder what is going up in this location.

I was able to stick my camera over the construction wall and grab this shot of the digging action.

Comments

[jackson]

They're putting in a Starbucks......

[Ben Tanen]

Some very cool stuff is happening on that corner Fred. That's the location of the new Bank of America building. Search the web(logs) for some interesting energy saving technologies being built into this new office tower.

Apologies if this link doesn't come through right:

http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/AR/20040630s.asp

A few other notable points --

* the demolition on this site has allowed, temporarily, a virtually unobstructed view of Town Hall all the way from 42nd street (helps if you're on a bus to get over the construction barriers)

* this will be the second tallest building in New York when completed

* the old Henry Miller Theatre on 43rd street was on part of this site and was demolished to make way for the building, except that the theatre facade was preserved (it is landmarked, evidently) and a new Henry Miller Theatre with the original entrance is being incorporated into the Bank of America building.

Pretty darn cool.

And as for Starbucks, there's already one right across 6th Avenue on 42nd. But that has never stopped them before, has it?

-Ben

[JayR]

I look right into that open construction site from my office and for the time being, I have tremendous light in my office, which I know will unfortunately disappear over the next year or two while this thing gets built. Hopefully, it'll be nice to look at. In my opinion, there hasn't been a really distinctive office tower built in midtown since the Citicorp building. Everything that's been put up in recent years could be transported to any other city and you wouldn't recognize it. Even Philadelphia has more interesting office towers than New York.