Howard Hughes Must Refine Seaport Tower Proposal: Landmarks therealdeal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from therealdeal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Feb. 26, 2021
For 90 years, the name of the publisher McGraw-Hill, rendered in intricate Art Deco terra-cotta lettering, has adorned the crown of the eponymous blue-green modernist building on West 42nd Street, which rose above a scraggly tenement neighborhood during the Great Depression.
Even after the company left in the early 1970s for a skyscraper at 48th Street and the Avenue of the Americas, the name continued to embroider the Hell’s Kitchen skyline. The building was designated a city landmark in 1979, and just last year a restoration of the 35-story tower’s distinctive terra-cotta cladding won an award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which praised the way the “11-foot-tall Deco style ‘McGraw-Hill’ sign was stripped to reveal the preserved original glaze.”
Et tu, Gale?
For opponents of two towers proposed in the South Street Seaport Historic District, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer’s endorsement of the $1.4 billion project Tuesday must have seemed like a betrayal.
For fans of residential development, it was a promising sign that the controversial project will get the go-ahead and that 2021 might be a turning point for builders.
Brewer has for ages sided against developers pitching outsize buildings, but she urged the Landmarks Preservation Commission to approve the Howard Hughes Corporation’s application for 250 Water Street.
She was among dozens of New Yorkers to testify at a hearing before the commission, which is charged with ensuring the appropriateness of architecture in historic districts.