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The Viridian Blooms!
Those of you who have read this blog know I have no affection for this development. For reasons only known to him Magic Johnson decided to fund/put his face on this, The Viridian (a fancy word for green, as in Green Street, in Greenpoint and how much “green” are you willing to outlay? $400,000 for starters.), in the name of urban renewal.
Urban renewal suggests blight. When I first moved to this block 110-130 Green Street housed businesses: a bus depot and stone worker’s shop. I can’t honestly say I liked having buses coming and going all hours of the night past my apartment. I didn’t. On the other hand I knew this came with living in an “industrial” neighborhood and with such businesses come jobs and tax revenue. Then came the rezone and shortly thereafter the Viridian.
I never experienced blight until Magic and his funky bunch moved in. Green Street has never been pretty— but it got a helluva lot uglier after Magic razed one third of it. Graffiti, garbage— LOTS OF GARBAGE, junkies shooting up and nodding off (on his illegally parked construction equipment) is what I will always remember the Viridian for. A condominium complex purported to sport such luxe accommodations as a concierge, rooftop cabanas, virtual golf, etc. A testament to progress and and urban renewal.
As of January 3, 2009 here’s what I saw:
A contextually inappropriate, shoddily built and VERY UGLY pile of crap. Let’s have a virtual auction my fellow Greenpointers. How much would you pay to rent a 500 square foot apartment in this dump? I’ll start the bidding at $500. One dollar per square foot.
Miss Heather
Comments
10 Comments on The Viridian Blooms!
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superclam on
Sun, 4th Jan 2009 11:52 am
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jasonm on
Sun, 4th Jan 2009 2:12 pm
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rheingold on
Sun, 4th Jan 2009 4:13 pm
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FutureMan on
Tue, 6th Jan 2009 5:00 am
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LNGarrison on
Wed, 7th Jan 2009 11:15 am
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missheather on
Wed, 7th Jan 2009 1:33 pm
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superclam on
Wed, 7th Jan 2009 8:08 pm
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missheather on
Thu, 8th Jan 2009 2:53 am
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matthewre on
Fri, 9th Jan 2009 4:23 pm
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luzauecoma on
Tue, 13th Jan 2009 4:50 pm
I have no idea what’s going on here. It looks like some of the worst construction I’ve ever seen.
On a related note, I also wonder how many of our local architectural diamonds in the rough will ever be finished in this economy. I can count at least 4 buildings being constructed in a two block radius that look like no one’s worked on them for a few weeks.
An absolutely amazing piece of shit. It makes me want to come to Greenpoint just to see this massive turd of a building.
That’s some pretty banged up siding! Are they holding outdoor hockey games outside The Viridian perhaps?
there’s no way that’s ACTUALLY the finishing siding on that building. it may be a giant piece of shit anyway, but it’s more likely that those panels are covering up some unfinished siding underneath, or something.
I live next door to the Viridian on the Hurson St. side. Yesterday while passing this building on my way to work, I heard one of the contractors screaming on his cellphone, “no more arguments, ok? Just sign my paycheck, I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”…
My bathroom window now looks out to this building and I can’t believe how awful the siding is! They’re going to put something else over it right? It is broken, the bolts don’t even hold it down the sliding, and looks horrible! In addition to the awful work they did on the concrete! I am fearful for the potential people who might move into this building…it looks like it could collapse anytime soon!
Those photos posted are acurate!
FutureMan: I used to think this too.
My exact words were: this cannot be the finished surface, right?
Then I noticed the siding on the garage and concluded that this was intended to be the finished surface. They have since ripped it down.
What I find fascinating is they didn’t even bother to put anything (insulation?) between the cinder block and the metal siding. They just nailed it into the block. And when that failed they employed mollies. This does not strike me as being good construction. Then again, we’re talking about an operation that managed to poke a hole in an adjacent building (how easy can that be?) and had to jackhammer up part of the foundation because they screwed it up.
I also almost can’t believe that this is it, but I haven’t seen anything to the contrary. It has an architectural (it looks like baked-on enamel) finish, there would be no point in covering it, nor would there be any reason to put it on with the intention of it being an underlayment of some sort.
Again, it’s some of the worst work I’ve seen in 10 years of looking at buildings. Usually, they at least try to make the finish look good, and hide the crap underneath.
They hide the crap in Manhattan, Long Island City and Williamsburg Superclam. During a recession (or would that be depression?) they let it all hang out in:
Greenpoint
East Williamsburg
Bushwick
Bed-Stuy, etc.
It’s not like they (developers) have to look at or live with the consequences of their folly every day. That’s our problem. That said, after I posted those vids of 110 Green they cleaned it up. And by “cleaning up” I mean ripping off some of the siding and hammering down the rest.
It’s still crap, only safer (for passersby). I can’t wait to see what they ask for rent on this dump. I’m thinking $2,000 a month for starters. Whoever is behind this shit pile (Magic?) was too blinded by greed or abjectly stupid to know a “luxury” condominium development on Green Street was (and is) laughable.
I have seen some remarkable modern architecture in other cities – from Sao Paulo to Berlin – and even the standard stuff is well executed and solid. Only in New York does there seem to be a conspiracy to make people hate contemporary design.
Wow, that’s hideous. A waste of cheap sheet metal even.
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