Gehry Perfection
Construction may have just started on Bruce Ratner’s Frank Gehry-designed tower on Beekman St., but the famed architect is still tinkering with his T-square and does not yet have the final design.
“Maybe by the time we’re at the eighth floor, we’ll have a rendering,” Ratner’s spokesperson joked.
In addition to residential units, the 75-story tower will house an occupational health center run by the New York Downtown Hospital and a K-8 public school. But while the building is going up, renderings of what it will look like are still not going out to the public. According to the spokesperson, that’s because the building design continues to change and the meticulous Gehry doesn’t want to publish plans until all the interior and exterior designs are finalized.
The placing of perimeter sheeting and I-beams (noisy) began this week, to be followed by test piles (noisier) at the end of November and full-out pile driving (noisiest) near the end of January.
Devil we don’t know
Downtown Independent Democrats, in its voter guide, is supporting the idea of voting to re-elect Alan Hevesi as state comptroller over Republican Christopher Callaghan. “Despite his egregious lapse in ethical judgment, if he should eventually exit, he will then be replaced by another Democrat and not that lightweight, Callaghan,” explained Sean Sweeney, D.I.D.’s president, who nevertheless hasn’t softened on another notable Dem. “We still couldn’t endorse Hillary — no endorsement in the U.S. senate race,” he added.
B.P.C.’s Gilmore Guy
Community Board 1 member and Battery Park City resident Tom Goodkind has been connected to all things Downtown for some time now, but who would guess that you can go from Goodkind to the “Gilmore Girls” in a mere two steps?
Yo La Tengo, a punk/rock/pop/folk fusion band that knows Goodkind from his time in the 1970s L.E.S. music scene, named the 10-minute instrumental jam that leads off their latest CD “Pass the Hatchet/I think I’m Goodkind.”
Although the CD, which is entitled “I am not afraid of you and will beat your ass,” did not hit store shelves until Sept. 12, music from the release was featured in last May’s season finale of “Gilmore Girls” (you know, the one where Logan went to London and Lorelei slept with Chris).
Curious ears can listen to “I think I’m Goodkind” for free at www.matadorrecords.com/yo_la_tengo/music.html or catch the man himself when he conducts the TriBattery Pops (www.tribatterypops.com).
Beaver Lodge
Downtown residents may have noticed the giant black martini-sipping beaver plastered (no pun intended) to the sides of buildings and ferry boats.
Turns out his name is William Beaver, mascot of a “supercharged lodge and residence” of the same name coming to the corner of, you guessed it, William and Beaver Sts. Celebrity hotelier Andre Balazs, creator of L.A.’s Chateau Marmont and The Mercer hotel in Soho, is the man behind the beaver.
While Willy’s ads are full of puns like “Lodge Downtown” and “Dam the Commute,” neither they, nor the Web site (www.williambeaver.com) offer much info on the building itself. A partially submerged mound of sticks, perhaps?
