10 to lose: Ugly buildings NYC would be better without

The AT&T building at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan has been included in amNewYork's special section 10 to Lose. (Tiffany L. Clark / June 18, 2008)

Each winter, amNewYork devotes a special issue to 10 buildings in New York City that we fear will soon disappear under negligent eye of the city's real estate interests.

Now, with the turning of the seasons and the sun high in the sky, we say enough with gnashing of teeth over this vanishing city. It's time to do a little pruning.

Besides, even the glittering New York City skyline is bound to contain a few clunkers. That's why we asked some of the city's leading architects and critics to put away their pencils and take out their erasers, and tell us which parts of New York the city would be better of without.

1.) Trump SoHo

Mitchell Joachim, Terreform, sustainable architecture professor at Columbia University

He finagled his way into getting a project like that done. It's incredibly tall, casts a shadow on everything, and is totally oblivious in scale to every building next to it. In New York this is the kind of pompousness we've come to expect. It would be totally unforgivable anywhere else. Worst of all, it's totally bland."

2.) Corinthian Apartments

Philip Nobel, author, "Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero"

"Corinthian Apartment buildings on First Avenue. I'm a big fan of Paul Rudolph and that building is like a bad copy of the best Paul Rudolph. It looks like a stack of coins. You can tell the architects did a cynical calculation, thinking, 'People like bay windows. Why not stack row and row of bay windows on top of one another.'"

3.) One Police Plaza and environs

Ethan Kent, Project for Public Spaces

"The entire area from 1 Police Plaza to the FDR. "It's so isolated and has that whole Robert Moses tower in the park idea. You could have a great waterfront there with great views of the Brooklyn Bridge if you could get a developer to develop it with a vision of where public space really comes first, and connects the civic center of New York to Chinatown. You could create a much better integrated neighborhood."

4.) NYU Kimmel Student Center

Andrew Berman, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

"The NYU Kimmel Student Center on Washington Square South. UUUUGLY. And it now blocks the view through Washington Square Arch down Fifth Avenue; you used to be able to see the downtown skyline (including the World Trade Center pre- 9/11) framed through the arch; now the arch is more or less engulfed by the KimmelCenter ."

5.) Marriot Marquis

Kurt Anderson, host, "Studio 360"

"Marriot Marquis in Times Square. It's terrible aesthetically and urbanistically. And the sooner the better, since it's almost 25 years old and could soon start acquiring that campy/nostalgic/revisionist fondness that seems to coalesce around hideous New York buildings when they reach a certain age."

6.) Atlantic Center

Rob Lane, Regional Design Programs, Regional Plan Association:

"Seems like the focus should be on buildings and structures that are not just ugly in someone's opinion, but things that detract from, if not destroy, the most essential part of urbanity – the pedestrian experience. One example is Atlantic Center in Brooklyn. Not only is it an eyesore, it completely detracts from the walkers experience through long empty sidewalks and hallways and absolutely no street life whatsoever."

7.) AT&T Long Lines building

John Hill, Editor, A Daily Dose of Architecture

"Definitely the windowless hulk of the AT&T Long Lines Building from 1974 has to go. But in today's mindset of sustainable thinking, the question of "what building should be removed from the city?" must be met with "what should be built from it?" Well, AT&T's 350,000 square feet of pink granite cladding could be reused to pave a 5-foot wide stretch of sidewalk the whole length of Broadway, giving Manhattan's 13-mile spine some much-needed continuity. And the structure of precast concrete walls built to survive a nuclear fallout could find a second life as barriers to withstand the rising waters of global warming. Just think of the possibilities!"

8.) Astor Place Condos

Brett Snyder, architect, Cheng + Snyder

"I wish I could erase the Astor Place Condominiums. Though Gwathmey-Siegel has done plenty of nice houses, this building has to be the most out of character building in the city. Astor Place of course has one of the best buildings in the city, the massive yet transparent Cooper Union, with a sensitive renovation by John Hejduk. The Astor Place Condos have curves where they aren't necessary, reflections where you'd rather not, and post-modern additions where the building should have ended. If I couldn't erase these condos, I'd at least try to move them to mid-town."

9.) 166 Smith St.

Lawrence Levi, senior editor, Nextbook.org

The MTA-owned structure at 166 Smith St., on the corner of Wyckoff Street, in Brooklyn. It's a windowless two-story bunker from the '20s that was encased in concrete a few years ago and now looks like it could withstand a nuclear blast. Earlier this year the MTA put it up for sale, so there's finally some hope for its destruction. And if the wrecking crew comes and takes out the Starbucks across the street, that'd be nice, too."

10. New Yankee Stadium

Michael Henry Adams, author, "Harlem Lost and Found."

"The new Yankee Stadium. What makes it so terrible is summed up by all the waste it represents. Imagine, the "House that Ruth built", where two popes have prayed, where Lou Gehrig declared himself, "the luckiest man on the face of the earth", where Joe Louis struck a decisive blow against racism, where Mandela celebrated the end of Apartheid and New Yorkers collectively mourned 9-11; with fan's ashes scattered all over the outfield---deliberately, irrevocably, destroyed?

For 6 more buildings to lose, and to put in your own picks, go to our Urbanite blog

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Related topic galleries: Columbia University, Times Square, Henry Adams, Starbucks Corp., Architecture, Lou Gehrig, New York