Port Authority Tower Felled at Last
SOHO China's CEO Zhang Xin at Davos this past January. (Courtesy World Economic Forum)
After the New York Times’s Charles Bagli broke the story on Tuesday that Vornado was no longer moving forward with plans to build the Richard Rogers-designed tower atop the Port Authority Bus Terminal, reporters descended on the Port’s board meeting on Wednesday. A transcript of the Q&A provided by the Port Authority reveals that while Vornado may be out of the picture, the Port hasn’t entirely dropped tower development from its list of possibilities, it’s just been put onto their gargantuan real-estate to-do list. Newly installed Patrick J. Foye hinted that the board was none-too-pleased with the snail like pace of development—it had been in the works for a decade. The deal fell through when Vornado’s Chinese backers pulled out casting an eye beyond the West Side to the East, Park Avenue that is.
Bright Lights, Big Bus Terminal
The new lighting design as seen from 42nd and 8th Ave. Courtesy GKD-USA/A2aMEDIA
By the end of June, the Port Authority Bus Terminal will be awash in graphics and light when a 6, 000 square foot stainless steel fabric embedded with LED lights wraps its way around the corner of 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue. The technology, known as Mediamesh, was developed by GKD-USA, a collaboration between a German light engineer firm and an American metal fabric manufacturer. The product is only four years old and allows LED imagery to wrap around buildings without disrupting interior views to the outside. But in the case of the Port Authority, the mesh allows exhaust fumes to escape while masking several giant X-trusses, a facade hasn’t exactly endeared itself to New Yorkers.
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