The downtown glitterati are upset about the planned sanitation and salt storage facility planned at Canal Street and the West Side highway. Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed along with celebrity friends Kirsten Dunst, Michael Stipe, James Gandolfini, Jennifer Connelly, Casey Affleck and others are throwing a “Hudson Rise Picnic” tonight at Saatchi & Saatchi at 375 Hudson Street to protest the two-acre facility, designed by Dattner Architects and WXY. The stars are pushing an alternate plan, called Hudson Rise, designed by Zakrzewski + Hyde Architects and Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects. See the above invitation. We’ll have a full report of the event tomorrow.

It’s the greatest meeting of celebrity and architecture since Edward Norton and Diane von Furstenberg saved the Highline!