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Gothamist's Picks for Ugliest Buildings
By
Jill Priluck
Published Mar 1, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jill Priluck
Published Mar 1, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Gridskipper solicited picks for the city's ugliest buildings from eleven architecture-minded New Yorkers. The list includes Astor Place’s The Sculpture for Living building (which replaced a parking lot), the Queens Citicorp Building, the Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building), the AT&T Building on Church St., the Cross Bronx Expressway and anything by Trump – but the Trump World Tower isn't really that ugly. Someone even mentioned the Hearst Tower. Wow.
Gothamist thinks these structures belong on the list:
- Three Park Ave.: It assaults subway riders exiting the 6 train at 33rd Street. We hear, too, that the air quality is pretty bad in there.
- Penn Station and Madison Square Garden: It’s round and it’s dated. And it’s plain ol’ ugly.
- The Gowanus Expressway: It’s the Brooklyn equivalent of the Cross Bronx and it is corroding (image above). And it may be demolished by 2020.
- Most Times Square buildings: “Every other building there is a mess” is how Gothamist's Jen Chung put it.
- The Brooklyn Criminal Court building: It’s certainly the ugliest, most architecturally refined building for its state of disrepair.
Françoise Bollack, head architect of the firm Françoise Bollack Architects, told Gridskipper that he used to think the Socony-Mobil Building on 42nd Street was ugly, but has since changed his mind. "That gives you a feeling of the transitory nature of our feelings."
We, um, second that emotion.
Update: For all the non-Francophiles out there, Françoise Bollack is a woman, not a man. Apologies. This is not a proud moment, given that we took what seemed like endless years of French.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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