Jul 5
Building of the Week - 22nd Ed.

 
Brooklyn Tower
55 Fleet St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Welcome back, mothertruckers! This week’s building towers over Brooklyn the way my fear of death towers over every day of my life. Too dark? TOO BAD! The Brooklyn Tower is the hottest new addition to “stupid, skinty, way too tall buildings”. There are really no jokes I can make that haven’t been made already, but I’ll give it an honest try. Most of the articles written about this beacon of evil and demise are just reporters clowning on the design. It’s nice to see people come together in a time like this with our country so divided :’)

Brooklyn Tower is a 74-story mixed-use, primarily residential (gender fluid, demisexual, racially ambiguous, he/they) skyscraper in downtown Brooklyn. Preserved at the tower’s base is the Dime Savings Bank Building, a historic bank that operated out of the building for almost 150 years! The architects behind Brooklyn Tower, SHoP Architects, pulled a lot of inspiration from this Beaux-Arts (avid Building of the Week heads know what the fuck that’s all about by now) style landmark - the hexagonal shape of Brooklyn Tower is inspired by the bank’s beautiful hexagonal ceiling and flooring. Naturally, of course, this historic site will be repurposed for retail. They’ve also added swimming pools for residents on the bank's rooftop which is …  cool? … I guess?

According to this article, “From its interiors to its facade, the design of the Brooklyn Tower establishes a dialogue between the borough’s history and its promising future.” Riiiiight. Good to know lying on the internet is still a thing. I’m pretty sure SHoP Architects and JDS Development just accidentally opened a portal to another dimension filled with evil and soon all the surrounding buildings will start to look the same. They said they wanted to build the Empire State Building of Brooklyn and I think they accomplished that - just as long as they were going for an evil kermit situation.

RIP Doofenshmirtz you would’ve loved this

Sitting at 1066 stupid feet tall, Brooklyn Tower is currently the only NYC supertall outside of Manhattan. This makes it stick out like a cursed thumb. A supertall, btw, is a skyscraper exceeding 300 meters (roughly 984 feet if you’re 🦅american🦅 like me) in height. There are about 18 of them in NYC. #19 on the list of tallest buildings in NYC is 50 Hudson Yards at 299 meters tall. SUCKS TO SUCK! Imagine being 1 meter off from being a supertall??? That’s like the 5’11” of building heights. Also, hey! Supertall is the stupidest name for something. We’ve stopped evolving as a species, I fear. 

My submissions to the stupidest word contest:

Ultrasmall: an apartment under 500 sq ft

Megastink: a human that goes a week without a shower 

Fastmetal: a car that goes faster than 20 miles an hour

Fastcar: when you got a plan to get us out of here

This “supertall” phenomenon has been plaguing the NYC skyline for at least a decade now. Every hot new building seems to be tall, skinny, and made of glass - just like Timothée Chalamet. I’m no expert at all, but I have some thoughts on why this may be. As a society, we have loved skyscrapers for many, many decades now, and maybe making new ones skintier, weirder, and evil-er makes them more interesting to us and, subsequently, to investors. Oh yeah, baby, I’m bringing capitalism into this. I’m also curious as to whether or not the cost of the land has anything to do with this. Making the tallest building on the smallest property can be a way to increase that bottom line (not really taking air rights into account tbh). I don’t know why this is happening, I just know that I hate it :)

 the lobby … boooooorting 👎🏼 👎🏼 👎🏼

A common theme with these ultra-modern buildings is ~money troubles~. A lesson that never seems to be learned is there’s not a huge market for unbelievably expensive residential spaces. Even though they are managing to sell a few spaces, including a 440-square-foot studio (aka an ultrasmall) that sold for $905,000 (the most expensive studio in borough history), it’s not enough. Back in April, the developer, Michael Stern, defaulted on a $240 million mezzanine loan and faced foreclosure. The foreclosure auction was set for June 10th but was called off last minute when Stern agreed to sell the property to the very bank they owed money to. Drama!! I hate when rich people fight :/

Fun Facts

this building’s base is larger than the supertalls on Billionaire’s Row so they claim it won’t have all of the wind swaying & other complications. 

The elevator waiting area ceiling is made of dimes to honor the dime savings bank:

RIP Toontown cogs you would've loved this

This guy, Max Rivlin-Nadler, wrote two articles (1, 2) on this building that I think are just perfect. Fave quotes include but are not limited to: “Woe unto those who would claim such a totem as their own, except me because I can absolutely handle it.” and “Not all bullshit is created equally”. They are short and sweet & I highly recommend checking them out.

Thank you for all the comments under last week’s installment!! They all made me giggle. But omg guys I have BIG news.

Introducing: Music of the Month!!!! I’ve been talking (mostly to myself) about wanting to do something like this for months and I’m so happy to release my very first installment. It won’t be nearly as funny as these, but I promise they will be interesting!  To read this month’s, go here! To subscribe, go here! 

Everything looks & reads WAY better on a computer than it does mobile, so please consider reading it there lol

Anyways… see you next week! Toodaloo!
 
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