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What Newtown Creek Will Look Like When It's Flanked By Luxury High-Rises


By

Lauren Evans

Published Mar 19, 2015

Modified Mar 19, 2015


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Avoid Obvious


By

Lauren Evans

Published Mar 19, 2015

Modified Mar 19, 2015


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We can scream and scream and scream about how glass-walled condos will eventually slow-roast their monied inhabitants, but developers don't care about the long term when there's money to be made RIGHT NOW. So these speculative renderings of high-rise luxury dwellings on the banks of chemical soup puddle Newtown Creek might be a pipe dream for now—but it's only a matter of time before they're reality.

The renderings, created as part of a design competition, are courtesy of architectural firm Avoid Obvious, and include plans to build three towers over ground-floor retail, one of which would be residential, one a hotel, and the third a "dedicated artist's studio," which is likely just a euphemism for "residential, but with an exposed brick accent wall (extra charges apply).

The rendering also depicts lots of trees, which is confusing and improbable, unless those are not trees at all but piles of old kale leaves made giant from radiation. Renderings should have more labels. Also, yachts will traverse the emulsified sewage, their owners clad in Gucci hazmat suits.

031915trees.jpg
(Avoid Obvious)

Horses? Horses! They are fighting over whose job it is to replace the sponges this month.

031915newtown1.jpg
(Avoid Obvious)

According to New York YIMBY, the area still needs to be rezoned for residential use and there's no developer signed on, though Avoid Obvious is optimistic that it will "find the right investors in China."

Tagged

apocalypse

development

newtown creek

real estate

renderings


Lauren Evans

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations


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