Ugly New Buildings: Not in Tom Wolfe's Backyard!
Tom Wolfe has been fighting the plan for a new building at 980 Madison, near his home on the Upper East Side, for a while now. Yesterday, he made it quite clear that he didn't want an ugly new building: "980 Madison is in the heart of the Upper East Side historic district and it does not need this additional structure. The district has been treated as a specifically landmarked area... I think it is incumbent... to roam through the great archives of architectural history, or architectural future, and come up with something that has more meaning with the Upper East Side." It's true that everybody is putting inappropriate buildings everywhere these days. (Wolfe previously vented his opinions on the original plans for 980 Madison, a skyscraper, to the New York Times.) After the jump: a Wolfe paen to skyscrapers! [Sun]