by: Carl Yost
Event: Around Manhattan: A Champagne Cruise for Landlubbers
Location: Center for Architecture, 08.05.10
Docents: Rick Bell, FAIA — Executive Director, AIA New York Chapter; Julie Ann Engh — Intern Architect, Avinash K. Malhotra Architects; Arthur Platt, AIA — Partner, Fink and Platt Architects; Abby Suckle, FAIA — Principal, Abby Suckle Architect; Rama Dadarkar, Intl. Assoc. AIA — Project Architect, Architecture Restoration Conservation; Kyle Johnson, AIA — Senior Associate, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects
Organizers: AIANY; cultureNOW
Sponsored by: Classic Harbor Lines
High Bridge, one of the stops on the architectural cruise for landlubbers.
Jessica Sheridan
AIANY is currently hosting architectural tours of New York aboard a 1920s-style yacht operated by Classic Harbor Line. But for those prone to seasickness, several of the guides delivered a “Pecha Kucha-style” version, “like doing the tour on a cigarette boat,” as Rick Bell, FAIA, put it. Photos of the city’s waterfront flashed on-screen for 20 seconds, and each docent crammed as much information about the sites into that time as possible.
Bell delivered an invocation from Billy Collins’ poem “Fishing on the Susquehanna in July,” and the tour set sail at breakneck pace. The first portion featured contemporary architecture in Chelsea, the West Village, and Battery Park City. Julie Ann Engh focused on Jean Nouvel Atelier’s 100 11th Avenue condominium, and Gehry Partners’ IAC Headquarters.
As the tour rounded Battery Park, and skipping most of the commercial towers that define Lower Manhattan, Arthur Platt, AIA, emphasized infrastructure — bridges, ferry terminals, and redeveloped piers — that recall the waterfront’s original industrial and commercial uses. “One of the themes of the tour,” he said, “is industrial artifacts and how they’re becoming centerpoints of some of the parks and new developments.”
Abby Suckle, FAIA, took over as the new residences of Long Island City and the hospitals on Manhattan’s East Side came into view. She noted how the windows of the luxury apartments at Tudor City face away from the river, which at the time of construction was lined with unsightly slaughterhouses (and where currently an open pit awaits redevelopment).
The tour sailed between the cliffs lining the Harlem River, which some consider NYC’s “forgotten waterfront,” according to Rama Dadarkar, Intl. Assoc. AIA. She pointed out the Harlem River’s many bridges — including High Bridge, the city’s oldest — and the educational and residential buildings that could be partially glimpsed through the trees.
Passing through the Spuyten Duyvil swing bridge and into the Hudson River, Kyle Johnson, AIA, led passengers into the home stretch: Riverside Park, the apartment buildings of the Upper West Side, and “a whole spate of new development” — the residential and commercial towers of Midtown.
After the tour “landed” back at Chelsea Piers, the guides discussed the changing waterfront. As industry left NYC, they noted, large amounts of riverfront land became available for redevelopment — resulting in projects such as Riverside South, the condominiums of Long Island City, and the forthcoming New Domino. As guests “disembarked” for post-sail champagne, Bell reminded everyone that the waterborne tours will continue into December — for those with sea legs, plenty of time to experience the real thing.
Carl Yost is the marketing and publicity coordinator for Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He has written for Forbes.com, Architectural Record, and The Architect’s Newspaper, among other publications.