I don’t know how important the South Street Seaport is to the average New Yorker, but I know I have a lot of memories of the place. I remember as a kid spending many summer days there with my mom. Naturally this was before I grew into an annoying teenager who was embarrassed to be seen with her.

Most years we didn’t have air conditioning at home, so we would spend a hot day in that Pier 17 mall browsing the stores and mooching the a/c. We would always stop at The Sharper Image first. I know that sounds strange but remember back in the 1980s that store was cool. There was always a long line of people to get in. That only built frustration and anticipation in a child. Once inside I would run around and look with wonder at all the useless gadgets. The food court at Pier 17 was also the first place I ate Hawaiian pizza. To a nine year old, pineapple on a pizza is the most exotic thing imaginable. As the afternoon grew long, we would sit out on the third floor deck in those heavy wooden lounge chairs and enjoy the strong breeze off the East River.

Oh but I skipped over the start of the day. We would always take the E train to the World Trade Center and walk across town. The A or C would have been closer to the Seaport but for whatever reason we never transferred to them. Walking by Trinity Church always made my imagination race. The building was so out of place in lower Manhattan. I wanted to get near the ancient gravestones. The stones were so thin and worn. They were so different from any cemetery I had been to.

I think it was Fulton Street that we took to walk to the Seaport. We would browse the little junk stores as we walked. I remember there was a Burger King built next to a basketball court. It always stuck out to me because the Burger King was built in a single story building that was set below street level. The apartments and offices that surrounded it really towered above it. Because the building was such an oddity I always wanted to eat there, but my mom only allowed it, maybe, twice in all those visits. Closer to the Seaport there were these two alleys off of Fulton. That really got my mind racing. There aren’t that many alleys in the street grid anymore. Every time we walked by, the history nerd in me would blossom and I would imagine New York City back in the 19th century when shit would actually go down in alleys.

And when I got older, I didn’t visit the Seaport much, but I did have some interesting memories of the area. There was one winter Saturday I spent the whole day shopping in lower Manhattan with my brother. We literally walked for hours, it was nighttime and quite cold, and we ended up near the Seaport. That’s when my brother got the idea in his head that it would be fun to walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge. So we walked from the Seaport to the bridge and then across. I remember the streets being oddly empty that night. Manhattan without people is quite eerie. That only heightened the tension for me when we crossed the bridge. On the Brooklyn side the area was totally dead. To get to the street we had to walk down this narrow concrete staircase whose overhead lights had burnt out.

It shouldn’t be surprising to learn the Seaport has the plumpest roaches. I think it was during my senior year of high school when I planned to meet friends there one night. I got there early and had a seat on one of those concrete benches near the elevated FDR at the edge of the pier. I sat and people-watched for a bit when I happened to catch some motion in the corner of my eye. I looked down, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to focus, but there I spotted a fat roach crawling around at the edge where the concrete bench met the cobblestone street. Horrifying! Later that same night when I was with friends hanging around the wooden pier in the back of the Pier 17 mall, I kept my eyes open for more roaches. Wow, did I find them! Of course they were there the whole time, but since I wasn’t looking I never noticed. Once I knew what to look for, I saw them everywhere!

Why am I babbling like a man on his deathbed? Well it turns out the South Street Seaport isn’t the draw that it used to be so a real estate developer is going to step in and redevelop the whole site. The Pier 17 mall will be razed. It’s going to be replaced with more retail space, a boutique hotel and a big condo tower. None of this bothers me. The South Street Seaport isn’t a museum. Buildings come and go but I’ll always have my memories. What bothers me is the hideousness of the new architecture. The new buildings are eyesores.

Let’s start with the obvious change – the new condo tower. The first thing that pops into my mind when I look at that permanent scaffold-like structure is the 1970s. That scaffold is a throwback to an era of rounded corners and cheap, plasticy surfaces. It’s hard to be certain from this rendering, but I strongly suspect that is exactly what it will look like close up in real life. I’m also a little skeptical of its placement. I would rather see it on the other side of the FDR.

Now let’s take a look at the boutique hotel. If I didn’t know what this was supposed to be, I would guess ‘College Campus Library circa 1975′. That irregular orange monstrosity may actually be worse than the tower. By the way notice the choice of pavers in this rendering. I hope that’s just lazy artwork and not accurate to the plan. The Seaport should have cobblestones, not whatever those hexagons are called.

I have no objections to redeveloping the entire seaport. I just don’t want it to look ugly. This design is adding some big eyesores to the skyline. That scaffold building is going to be right next to the Brooklyn Bridge too. You can’t ignore that. Community Board 1 seems to go apeshit at the idea of anything with the slightest bit of height to it, so I think this plan is going to end up being killed. I don’t agree with that attitude, but hey at least these horrid buildings won’t go up.

Everyone who flies to and from New York is going to get higher airfare thanks to the federal government. The transportation secretary announced they will try to force airlines to auction landing and take off slots at Newark Airport and JFK.

Supposedly this measure is to “boost competition” among airlines. What a joke. What they’re doing is increasing the cost of operating in NYC. This will make it even more difficult for future budget airlines to set up operations there. Auctions will raise the cost of these slots and only the deep-pocketed mega airlines will be capable of coughing up the money. Of course the higher cost will then be passed on to us consumers.

The real reason the government is doing this is because New York City’s airports are crowded. It’s as simple as that. The city is both a large hub and major destination in its own right. Lots of people fly there and that means lots of jets use the area airports. This auction is a response to scarcity. The take off and landing slots are in short supply. Rather than continue to sell them at a fixed price, an auction would certainly reap more money from them.

But the government wants to spin this idea as being consumer focused. The Department of Transportation is pursuing auctions and hourly flight caps in the name of stopping flight delays. Sounds great right? It’s gubernment standin’ up fo’ the little man! Except by putting limits on flights you make those flights even more valuable and therefore expensive. The little man may take off on time, but he will definitely pay more to fly.

A real consumer focused plan would involve creating more slots. You could try expanding the area’s three major airports with new terminals. Newark is landlocked so you would need to take over existing property there. JFK and LaGuardia are against the ocean. We could create new land by filling in some of Jamaica Bay and the water north of LaGuardia.

But in the same vein as that idea, I would love to see a new NYC airport built on an artificial island. What I find tragic is that it sounds like a crazy idea. Yet Asia has six: Kansai International Airport, Chubu Centrair International Airport, Kobe Airport, New Kitakyushu Airport, Macau International Airport, and Hong Kong International Airport (Chek Lap Kok Airport). Is New York less important than Kobe or Macau? New York has to suck it up and accept a limit on flights while Asian cities plan for the future?

How is it the Chinese and the Japanese can get organized enough to propose, plan, build and operate an airport built on an artificial island, but here the idea is practically science fiction. It’s like we’re the Medieval Europeans who marveled at the achievements of the Romans but lacked the capability to match them. I’m sure they tried to patch up the buildings and infrastructure the Romans left behind as best as they could, but eventually they decayed beyond repair and no one knew how to replace them. We are a civilization in decline. We let our infrastructure decay and stagnate because we’ve become afraid to make any changes to our surroundings.

An artificial island would cost billions to build for sure. I don’t think the government would have to pay for it though. The local New York authorities should put out an RFP for this project. Let private corporations step forward with plans to finance the construction and then fully own and operate the new airport. The government’s responsibility would be left to building highway and rail connections. I understand that won’t be cheap but it’s still cheaper than building the whole project alone. The incentive is the same as all infrastructure projects. When you build them, you provide the foundation to grow your economy faster. Spending, say, $500 million on some new roads would translate into future billions in tax revenue from the increased economic activity you get from faster, easier air travel.

I feel the ideal space for this new island would be in Lower New York Bay, south of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Right now there is just some beaches on the shore, some single family homes and Staten Island University further inland. I would expect a lot of these houses to be bought up and replaced by hotels serving the new airport. Depending on your political persuasion, that sounds like great progress or horrible development. I like it being near the Verrazano Bridge because only a short extension of I-278 would be needed.

Right now there are two artificial islands already off that coast. Hoffman Island and Swinburne Island were constructed in the 1800s to quarantine contagious immigrants found at Ellis Island. They would likely be destroyed for the airport, but since they seem to be uninhabited I don’t think that should matter.

How big would it need to be? Well New York is a major city so I think the only fair comparison should be with Chek Lap Kok Airport. It handled 47 million passengers in 2007. That enormous addition to the city’s air capacity would be a boon. This airport covers about 12.5 square kilometers. Let’s see what a hypothetical island, of the same area, would look like.

This island is a rectangle of 4 km by 3.1 km. What the actual airport would look like I leave to real engineers. This shows just you how it would fit into the area.

Building this is a engineering possibility. I doubt New York, or anywhere in America really, has the political courage to get it done though. No government official would want to propose a privately owned airport. Neither would they stand up against people who complain that beaches would be lost even though they can be replaced elsewhere, or ones that complain about noise even though the runways could be oriented so jets approach from the ocean. Oh and I almost forgot about the people who complain that air travel isn’t environmentally friendly at all and want government to discourage its use. Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to learn to enjoy our higher airfares.

Chuck Schumer usually pisses me off. Today is different. For once I’m going to applaud the man. He actually said something sensible. Schumer wants NYC to place a higher priority on extending the 7 train and denser development around Penn Station, and make the development of the Hudson Yards secondary.

Why is this a good idea? It’s a more cost effective way to dole out government incentives. Right now the Penn Station area is a dead zone in Manhattan. There’s little office space, relative to Midtown. Yet it is a major transit hub where 6 subway trains meet, AMTRAK stops, and NJ Transit and the LIRR terminates. It would be far better if thousands of those people could simply go to work right there, instead of having to transfer to continue their commute. If we actually move forward with the Moynihan Station project we could encourage growth in the area. Relocating Madison Square Garden isn’t even necessary. Improving the transit situation will make the area more attractive to develop. The city just needs to remove the height restrictions on new construction.

The extension of the 7 train would also benefit a much wider area than the Hudson Yards project. It would encourage development all along the route as transportation for workers and residents would become more convenient. It would develop a whole neighborhood, and tax breaks wouldn’t even be necessary for it to happen. Better transportation would make the area more desirable and increase real estate demand. To respond to the demand, developers would make the area denser. That’s why the 10th Avenue station is vital. If that goes missing, a large number of blocks will remain isolated and miss out on the growth opportunity.

By contrast the Hudson Yards project has a lot of liabilities. The most obvious is the construction of the platform over the rail yard. That alone will be expensive to complete, meaning the city has to kick in more tax incentives for anyone to try it. It’s also next to the Hudson River and the subway is a far walk. The lack of mass transportation options means the residents will further burden Manhattan’s roads. That will also make the location less attractive to business. However, if you were to run the 7 train through the area, developers would be more willing to work on Hudson Yards later.

Hudson Yards is a vanity project. The logic behind it is the same as all those failed downtown revitalization projects of the 1970s. Back then when inner-cities were decaying, urban planners convinced municipalities that if they built something big and shiny downtown, people will come. Bloomberg is saying the exact same thing. If we get some mega-developer to build a giant complex over the Hudson Yards, everyone will want to come to the surrounding area. If that’s true, they’ll be doing a lot of walking. Pushing for Hudson Yards ahead of the 7 train and Moynihan Station is like putting the cart before the horse.

Bloomberg didn’t take the suggestion too well. He pretty much said ’drop dead’. That’s what this sounds like to me.

If he gets us the money for Moynihan, we’ll be able to do that at the same time. We set the city’s priorities. They don’t come out of Washington.

You could at least consider the suggestions from Washington, Mr. Mayor. I’ve always felt pretty neutral towards Bloomberg. He isn’t a great mayor, nor is he a lousy one. After hearing his tantrum, I’m pretty disappointed with him. That was the response I expect from a spoiled brat. Perhaps he’s upset all his grand plans for NYC – The Olympics, a football stadium, redevelopment of the Iron Triangle, congestion pricing - have all failed. The Hudson Yards is his last chance to leave a mark on NYC, and that deal is imploding. Sucks to be Bloomberg (except for his billions). Hooray for Chuck Schumer for telling the truth!

Well here’s another reason I should register to vote. This November, Santa Clara is running a ballot initiative to decide if the city should pay for the 49ers new stadium. The York family, owners of the 49ers, have requested Santa Clara kick in $222 million towards the construction of a stadium in the city, near Great America amusement park. The Yorks would pay the remaining $694 million for the stadium complex.

Why should I vote? Because this is stupid. No city should ever pay to entice a sports franchise to set up shop. The costs never add up to benefit the city. I’m not even sure what the $222 million will get Santa Clara besides the presence of the 49ers. Will it give Santa Clara a percentage of ownership in the stadium, and with that, a share in the revenues generated in the park? That hardly seems worth it. How much money does a football stadium take in during a year?

I don’t care if the 49ers move to Santa Clara or not. If they do, it’s fine with me, but I don’t want to pay for them to come. Now maybe if the Yorks offered something of value to the city, I would change my mind. Forbes valued the 49ers at $799 million in 2007. So $222 million should buy 28% of the team. If the Yorks allowed Santa Clara to buy that percentage of the team, then yes I would vote to hand this money over because that would be an investment not charity.

Yet somehow I don’t see that happening. So the Yorks would have to find more money elsewhere. Unfortunately naming rights are only a drop in the bucket. The highest price I could find was $7.6 million a year for FedEx to buy the name FedEx Field for the Washington Redskins. At that rate, which the 49ers would never get, they would have to lease the stadium name for a little over 29 years.

Could the Yorks sell $222 million worth of corporate bonds to finance this? Probably not. The whole debt market is in upheaval now and I have my doubts considering that bonds issued by Santa Clara, with their tax free status, would probably be rated BBB. If the 49ers can’t find a way to cut construction costs, I don’t know what they can do. Whatever they decide, I sure don’t want it to include any handouts from Santa Clara.

Okay you try turning that into a palindrome. But getting back to infrastructure, South Korea isn’t the only one having some fun. A real estate developer in New York wants to build a tunnel connecting Westchester County and Long Island. It would be 16 miles long and connect Rye, NY with Oyster Bay, NY. The developer estimates it would cost $10 billion to build and the cost would be recouped through a $25 toll.

Audacious, yes! I’m just stunned this was proposed by a private developer. I can’t remember the last time the private sector proposed building a big infrastructure project on this scale. Usually this is the domain of government and there has been no shortage of government plans for bridging the Long Island Sound. Most of these were planned in the 1960s and 1970s, during the end of the infrastructure boom generated by the Interstate Highway project. Few plans have called for tunnels because of their far greater cost. None of them went forward because no one believed the cost could be recaptured by tolls. Plus I’m sure there was lots of bitching about the environment.

That’s what makes this proposal so dramatic. This developer says he can do what government couldn’t – make a Long Island Sound crossing economical. He has two advantages from the past though. Quite simply there is more traffic today than in the 1970s. More traffic means more potential customers for this road. Second, I can’t imagine those proposals from the 60s and 70s were considering a (inflation adjusted) $25 toll. I think there would have been too many complaints about it being a “rich man’s bridge” if that was planned. Having more customers and charging higher prices are easy ways to make a project worthwhile.

Some time ago I was thinking about the benefits of a crossing at Long Island Sound. I liked the idea as part of a plan to alleviate traffic in New York City. The only way to drive to or from Long Island right now is to go through NYC, America’s most populous city. It’s crazy that all that traffic must be routed through there. If you don’t need to stop in NYC you should be avoiding it, but Long Island traffic has no choice. I would have chosen to build a bridge across the Sound instead of a tunnel because of the cost savings. I simply reject the notion that a bridge would destroy the beauty of the area. People had the same criticisms of the Golden Gate Bridge, yet now no one would dare say the bridge ruined SF Bay.

Like this tunnel proposal, I chose Rye as my mainland terminal because of the proximity of two interstate highways. Traffic heading into New England can take I-95. Traffic headed to the rest of the country can take I-287. I also wanted to avoid the trouble of involving a second state government (Connecticut) in the construction. However my Long Island terminal differed. Because I chose a bridge instead of a tunnel I needed a coastal point. Northeast of Oyster Bay is a little town called Bayville. On a map that looks like the obvious choice, but you have to consider the area’s roads. That’s why I finally chose Glen Cove, west of Oyster Bay. State Highway 107 ends near there. Hwy 107 would need to be extended to the north shore and probably widened to accommodate the traffic but that’s easier to do than building a new road from Bayville.

It’s not that Oyster Bay is a bad choice. It’s just more complicated to engineer a bridge across the varied terrain that it would take to bring a bridge to that bay. I would expect to have to make a landing at Centre Island first, build a road the length of the island and then have a second bridge segment from that island to the Town of Oyster Bay. That route would be very visually obtrusive and because of that would generate more opposition.

Here’s a quick summary map of the different bridge proposals.

To my surprise New York State studied my idea for a Rye – Glen Cove Bridge in 1971! And I thought I was being so original. Although it seems like it should be a point of pride that I, without any engineering education, came up with the same idea as some engineers in the 70s. Technically I don’t know what area of Glen Cove they would have built the bridge to but I figure it can’t be too far off from where I placed it. They certainly wouldn’t hook it around and bring it into the center of Glen Cove.

From my reading it seems that the 1979 study recommended doing nothing but more ferry service. The 1971 study recommended building the Rye – Oyster Bay Bridge. The 1965 study was far more focused on the eastern end of Long Island and recommended a bridge from East Marion to Old Saybrook. I find the idea of building any bridge that far east to be a complete waste. The North Fork of Long Island is practically deserted. I can only think that those east end farms would like a bridge to New England. That might open up new markets for them. To my mind though, that is far below the needs of the crowded western half of Long Island.

There’s no guarantee this tunnel project will go forward unfortunately. There are more studies to be carried out that could sink this plan. I hope not though. I think the tunnel would be a great benefit to area transportation. A $25 toll is really expensive but I’ll bet shipping companies will pay it to keep their drivers out of New York City traffic. This has the potential to become a major shipping artery and that is positive for nearly everyone. Companies will save time because their trucks won’t be idling in NYC (and perhaps even save money). New York City will benefit from less thru-traffic. Long Islanders will have a faster route out of the island. Rye Playland will probably benefit because it will be quicker for Long Islanders to drive there.

Oyster Bay may complain though. They’re going to get a lot more traffic from this project and the local roads will need upgrading. Technically the same can be said for Rye, but I’m skeptical it would be a big imposition on them. There are two Interstate Highways in the area. The town is already a moderately dense area with traffic. I don’t think objections about traffic from a place that already has traffic is fair. There’s no bucolic splendor to ruin. It’s like a Manhattanite complaining about crowds.

If I came upon a street with a “bike box” I would be utterly confused. I’ve never heard of these things before. I don’t think I would drift into it because I can understand the stop line, but still I would feel really uncomfortable sitting there so far behind the light. According to Streetsblog these things are popping up on streets across New York City, the rationale being it’s safer for bikes to go first I guess. I would expect them all to get passed though. When I have a cyclist next to me my objective is to get away from them.

Perhaps this helps bikes make turns? A bike lane is confined to one side of the street so usually a cyclist has to merge with car traffic to make a turn that’s opposite of the bike lane. This gives them a chance to stay away from cars, which as a driver I appreciate.

It makes me wonder though how changes in street markings are explained to the public. I doubt everyone in NYC received a mailer explaining what a bike box is. Just repainting the lines and expecting drivers to figure it out is the cheap way but I’m pretty sure it will lead to a number of screwups.

Does anyone really know what a McMansion is anymore? I used to think a McMansion referred to cookie cutter new housing developments. The McDonald’s connection being the houses were the same mass produced schlock that appealed to the lowest common denominator, just like McDonald’s food. Usually there would be a mishmash of architectural styles that annoyed architecture buffs. Then at some point I started to hear people criticize McMansions for their size. For whatever reason having a house dominate the lot it’s on was a bad thing now.

At least newness was still part of this definition but now Curbed has a thrown me a for loop. They referred to a 1927 San Francisco home as an old school McMansion, and I have no idea why. They seemed to have a problem with the stairs leading to the front entrance and the spiral staircase inside. So now no one can build stairs without building a McMansion?

I think what happened is that “McMansion” has ceased to have a real definition and turned into an architectural insult. For instance let’s say you were cut off on the highway and you yelled out “motherfucker” in retaliation. Are you really saying, “Why I do believe that man engages in intercourse with his mother”? Of course not. You don’t say it because it’s true. You say it because it’s mean. It’s just an insult. It’s a word that exists to disparage. That is what McMansion has become. When you don’t like a home, whatever your reason, you just label it a McMansion.

I do want to get back to that 1927 home because I think it’s a stunning building, McMansion or not. 135 Fernwood has a pretty good website. I guess that’s part of the process for selling a $4.2 million house. Make sure you visit the site and look at all the pictures. I’m not sure what there is not to like. It’s seven bedrooms in a spacious 6000 SF house. As crazy as it sounds that bathroom I have pictured here is my favorite room. It is jawdroppingly gorgeous. Shame on me for never even thinking of doing a whole wall in glass tile. That kitchen is a great space too. I don’t like the bland color of the counters but the open layout really appeals to me. I would love to be cooking in there.

135 Fernwood does have its quirks though. You’ll see the biggest in the floorplan. For some strange reason the garage connects to this random hallway. I guess that’s there to keep the dining room intact and private but really it feels like a deadend. In a perfect world the kitchen would be where the family room is located but I wouldn’t reject the house out right because of this. I am a bit surprised a house this size doesn’t have a three car garage. That master bath is awfully lifeless too. The tiling and finishes remind me a lot of a condo I visited in Dublin. I don’t understand why this bathroom turned out so bland. The other two pictured bathrooms look so modern and appealing.

If only I had $4.2 million to blow on a home.

Since I started paying attention to real estate I’ve noticed a few community tendencies that seem universal. One of which is bookstores are always going out of business but are always wanted in a neighborhood. That is something that I will never understand. Over and over again people bemoan the loss of bookstores but apparently these businesses can’t generate enough customers. Yet people still cry over them.Myrtle Avenue is searching for a young entrepreneur willing to open a bookstore there. I guess they hope this business will buck the trend. They’re also looking for a cheese shop and organic grocer. I think that tells a lot about the character of this neighborhood and the people who pine for a local bookstore. Oh but I’m wrong because even proletarian Greenpoint yearns for a bookstore.

You’re probably wondering, if you’re still reading this, how can I be so callous about the loss of these important community centers that bring vibrancy to urban thoroughfares. *WHEW* Gotta catch my breath. That sentence had way too much bs in it. Anyway, to answer the question, it’s because I know local bookstores suck. I used to actually fall for that talk about bookstores and that led me to attempt to participate in this bookstore culture. I used to work right on this picturesque small town main street. One day I took a break from work and walked over to the local bookstore. I expected shelves upon shelves of fascinating books and perhaps even some scintillating conversation with neighbors. All I found there was a store with disorganized piles of dusty books. Some of these looked as if they were leftovers from the 1960s. The history section I had come to browse turned out to be two shelves. This was just a huge letdown.

My experience is the reason these stores can’t stay open. After that I never went back and became a confirmed Amazon customer. Amazon provides nearly every book you could want. You can read reviews and it will even suggest other books similar to what you’re looking for. No bookstore can compete with that. Today these stores rely on people’s goodwill to stay open because they cannot give customers what they want. They hope their customers will come and accept what they have.

What I don’t understand is why people would settle for a lower quality of service when they don’t have to. If you need to have a particular book in your hand immediately, you still need to go to a big chain bookstore because local bookstores don’t have a wide selection. No matter how hard I try, I cannot see what satisfaction people get from having a local bookstore around. I could only guess these stores appeal to the disorganized sort who are willing to wander in off the street, pick up a random book and read it. I cannot act like that. When I select a book it’s for a purpose. When I read Sprawl it was because of my new interest in real estate and urban planning. The last book I read, Three Men in a Room, was to learn about government gone wrong. Essentially I was giving myself a civics lesson. The book I’m reading now, Mao: The Unknown Story, is because my knowledge of China is pretty limited. How can I not learn about the man who turned Chinese culture on its head? Reading has a purpose for me. I am not the type to read for the sake of reading. Maybe those are the sort that mourn the demise of the local bookstore.

Overstated has put together a list correlating San Francisco neighborhoods with neighborhoods in New York City. I think it’s mostly correct, although I would expect some lively discussion to be generated from this.

One thing that jumped out at me is Treasure Island/Roosevelt Island. I don’t think Treasure Island has quite the same bleakness that Roosevelt Island has.

Somehow the Mission being equivalent to Williamsburg doesn’t sit right with me either. The Mission is more crime ridden. I think comparing it to Bushwick might be a better choice.

This is the sort of building that brings out strong feelings. Speaking for myself, I really like it. It’s great to see such a bold reinterpretation of the three story townhouse. Brooklyn has thousands of these sorts of buildings, 95% of which are probably covered in aluminum siding. This, dubbed the Fishtank Building, can’t help but be noticed.

It’s not really so practical though. I don’t think I would want my apartment on display to the whole street. Anyone who moves in is probably going to end up covering up an entire wall with curtains. That sort of defeats the purpose of the building. I’ve noticed this same problem in construction all over New York. It seems like nearly every new residential building is all glass and steel. That design can provide great views if you’re on a high enough floor, but high or low, you put your apartment on display to the world. Doesn’t anyone want privacy anymore? I can’t think of a new building that uses ordinary double-hung windows. Yeah they restrict your view to the outside but it also keeps people from seeing in.