For AT&T, Balancing Change and Preservation Under the Same Broken Pediment

Dec 05, 2018 · 7 comments
Steve Doss (Columbus Ohio)
The glass dress looks better.
MTS (Kendall Park, NJ)
“deliberately made it hard to distinguish between true grandeur and mock grandiloquence.” I love the AT&T Building, but that description is perfect for 15 CPW.
Robert E. Malchman (Brooklyn, NY)
This is how I know I'm old: A building opened when I was already an adult is now a historical landmark. (That said, I agree that the present new design is an improvement on the first redesign and on what was done in the '90s.)
Sasha Love (Austin TX)
I always liked this building because it reminded me of a modern grandfather clock. I'm happy they didn't gut the original look of the building and I loved the new windows to open the space up. Sometimes rational thinking does win.
Lucas (NYC)
It took me a few moments to realize that I appreciated this article in part because of its up-beat tone. Rather than lamenting problems and changes that affected the tower, this article went from here was a problem, here's what we did about it and what's more, the final result is better than what we started with. I wish more commentary shared this spirit of trying to see the opportunity in the world rather than just bemoaning all of its ills. This positive can-do attitude of combining the thoughts of potential critics with your own ideas is what leads to real progress. Thanks for the insightful piece.
Michael Fisher (Texas)
I always thought this was one of NYC's nicest buildings. I guess I just like oddball designs, like the old Pan Am building.
Andy (Connecticut)
Glowing screens without context, everywhere. Thank goodness for some sanity here, preserving a sense of solid material (or its absence) and a top-to-bottom coherence. What quaint virtues.