{"id":211,"date":"2012-03-27T22:31:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T03:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/?p=211"},"modified":"2013-01-07T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T16:12:00","slug":"modern-towers-can-respect-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/2012\/03\/modern-towers-can-respect-the-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern towers can respect the street"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re walking up Broadway in Greenwich Village, you’ll get to the block between Waverly Place and Eighth Street:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice how there’s a continuous row of shops (except for the garage) that respects the “build to” line, as do the shops on the following block. Above the shops is a setback, and then the 31-story Georgetown Plaza<\/a> tower, built in 1965<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the same block, right next to where I took the picture above, the shops continue with the venerable “Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger” diner, a liquor store and the Delion Deli. Above them is the 35-story Hilary Gardens<\/a> tower, built in 1972<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s not classic Greenwich Village urbanism<\/a> or a quiet residential street<\/a>, but it’s easy to walk and provides a stimulating visual environment. It fits in so well with the surrounding ground-floor retail that I only recently noticed that the buildings were postwar towers.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with the boring vegetation<\/a> along Washington Square Village, or the pointless lawn<\/a> of Silver Towers.<\/p>\n

If the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation really wanted to “protect the character of our neighborhood,” they would ask NYU to build retail out to meet the sidewalks of Third, Bleecker and especially Houston Street. That’s what the area needs, not more pointless, inaccessible “open space,” and not to be frozen in amber in 1967.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re walking up Broadway in Greenwich Village, you’ll get to the block between Waverly Place and Eighth Street: Notice how there’s a continuous row<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-greenwich-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grieve-smith.com\/ftn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}