Tuesday, September 23, 2014

ARCHITECTURE: TALL STACKS AT MANHATTANVILLE

More Bespoke readers have been noticing a highly visible new arrival over at the Columbia University Manhttanville construction site at the first building that is finishing up.  When the renderings were published, the Renzo Piano design seemed like a pretty straightforward glass cube for this location just north of 125th on Broadway but looking at things over again, it is clear now that gigantic smoke steam stacks were always part of the original plan.  Information from Columbia University states:

Columbia University is installing two (2) boiler stacks on top of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, currently in construction at West 129th Street and Broadway. The stacks will be 75 feet above the roof line of the building and are part of the Manhattanville campus central energy plant, a below-grade facility which will consist four (4) 45,000 lbs/hr steam boilers and related equipment necessary to produce steam and hot water for the new Manhattanville campus.

At the end, the area was always the industrial part of Harlem and the new building kind of brings back that aesthetic.  Another plus is that the aging architecture of 3333 Broadway just a couple blocks north no longer dominates the skyline at this juncture.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2014 at 3:32 PM

    There's been a lot of progress on the site, when viewed from the other angle. The second building is going up quickly.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 24, 2014 at 9:39 PM

    I lived in this area for over two decades. One of my apartments faced north (the direction of this building). While I wasn't thrilled with 3333 B'way dominating the view, it was offset by the Viaduct and in the distance, the George Washington Bridge and the New Jersey Palisades. I'm not sure that this is an improvement, but I suppose it is progress. I wonder how much longer it's going to take Columbia to build on the lot west of this building and finish off the block?

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