Another building bites the dust in LIC – Say goodbye to CANGRO

That was a cool building that could have been rehabilitated and used for a loft conversion. Once again, another intriguing building bites the dust in HP.

here we go again.

what’s a midwesterns?

yep. still suck

and his girlfriend has a really bad fake tan.

this building was originally intended to be a conversion (according to the original permits). I guess that they chose not to in the end.

“New sells, not ‘used.’ Look at how poorly the Powerhouse is selling. There you go”

Uh, maybe it’s because the Powerhouse looks like shit. There are plenty of historic rowhouses, apartment blocks, and loft conversions doing fine…

I don’t see any permits for the demolition – is it even legal?

RE: the powerhouse….at least if you live IN it, you don’t have to look AT it…

Yay more condos, just what NYC needs. I wonder where all the middle class, regular working folks will wind up living. Obviously this town doesn’t want them anymore.

Cities around the world with a lot less money than NYC have managed to preserve and reuse buildings hundreds of years older than ours and create bustling areas a lot of Americans (except narrow-minded idiots like No. 2) love to visit and fantasize about living in.

And yet in NYC, we all accept at face value that there is always every reason in the world to knock down the old, beautifully constructed buildings and replace them with tacky shit. It’s progress, we’re told. Or it would be impossible to market the spaces. Or people wouldn’t afford the new space.

I just wonder what the hell is NYC going to look like in a few decades if this continues. Like some god awful Persian Gulf city filled with dull, unimaginative people with no taste? YUCK. Count me out.

the cangro looks better to me than most of the new condo buildings. i wonder if LIC will eventaually look like miami… minus the stucco.

19 – you should be ashamed of yourself with that comment. Stop insulting the great middle class neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn. There are plenty of good neighborhoods with ample housing supply affordable to middle income earners. Your comment is disgraceful.

To #21: Paris.

No. 21, How about the Tate Modern in London? It was an old wreck of a powerhouse, much like the former Schwartz Chemical, that was refurbished into a modern art museum and is now one of the biggest tourist draws in the city. You need to get out more often.

27 – Paris is not an example of a building. However, since you bring it up, Paris does seem to be having issues with its tight building restrictions:

Paris’s unchanging borders, strict building codes and lack of developable land have together contributed in creating a phenomenon called muséification (or “museumification”) as, at the same time as they strive to preserve Paris’s historical past, existing laws make it difficult to build within the city limits the larger buildings and utilities needed for a growing population. Many of Paris’s institutions and economic infrastructure are already located in, or are planning on moving to, the suburbs. The financial (La Défense) business district, the main food wholesale market (Rungis), major renowned schools (École Polytechnique, HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, etc.), world famous research laboratories (in Saclay or Évry), the largest sport stadium (Stade de France), and some ministries (namely the Ministry of Transportation) are located outside of the city of Paris. The National Archives of France are due to relocate to the northern suburbs before 2010. The need for a larger Paris is largely acknowledged by the French government. As of November 2007, discussions for such a larger Paris have begun, though which suburbs should be included in this larger Paris is unresolved. In any case, such an extension will not occur before the French city-hall elections, scheduled in the spring of 2008.

So they should turn Cangro into a museum? How about PS1? Wasn’t that converted into a museum while maintaining the original architecture? It seems like we actually do maintain existing buildings where plausible in this country. You need to get out more often.

No, Banana Republic, Gap, J. Crew. Wal-Mart would attract the wrong kind of people, if you know what I mean.

We’ll always have Paris

thank you, bro

I beg your pardon, “anonymous” (#40), but are Europeans to be so rudely welcomed in your city? If so, might not one make the case, particularly if one were Native American, that, since New York City is the creation of Europeans–but I have no wished to parlay one insult into another. Perhaps there are some Europeans of which you approve. I am sorry that no one is entirely happy today. No one is entirely perfect either, an unfortunate fact that I, for one, often overlook.

“Anonymous” (#42), I thank you for your rejoinder. That you misconstrue what I have said, COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY, leaves me speechless (momentarily), inasmuch as I AGREE with your characterization of the state of affairs in Long Island City regarding this unwelcome over-development. We Europeans have our own corruption, of course, although it has little connection (if any) to the pressing issues about which you feel so strongly. Apparently you are so ANGRY that you must attack whoever happens to appear in your sights, but it is possible that you may discover you have more friends than you thought, even among “foreigners.” In my post I had in fact responded to such an insulting formulation. I did not mean to suggest that it is not YOUR COUNTRY and YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
Nor would I suggest that Europe is superior in any way. I am not free to comment on my own country, but both Germany and France have recently”elected” fascists leaders, even after observing the results of Neo-Con policies in America. As you might say, “Go and figure.”
Let us wish one another good luck.