New York Daily Photo Analytics

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Underscore

You could spend your life just admiring and learning about NYC architecture. Before moving to this city, I had essentially no knowledge or appreciation of buildings. But, architecture is one of the greatest things about New York and to not make an effort to really learn about the great structures here is to miss out on one of this city's greatest assets. On nearly any block or at every turn there is something of merit - row houses, skyscrapers, art deco masterpieces.
Evening light is the best time for photography and when you have a building which is readily enhanced by yellow-orange hues, you have the ideal subject. See here for another magnificent example.
When I photographed this from the west side of Manhattan, I had no idea what this building was or its exact location - so ferreting out this information based on visuals and a guess at location is always challenging.
The building in the photo, One Worldwide Plaza, turns out to be somewhat more than the average skyscraper. It was built in 1989 on the site of a former (the third) incarnation of Madison Square Garden. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore,Owings and Merrill, it is a part of a three-building complex with mixed commercial and residential use. It is one of the worlds tallest buildings at 49 stories, 778 feet (238 m). You can read more about it here.
In spite of all this, it is easy to not notice and most will pass it by - so even here, with this beautiful tall building, its brick exterior and copper roof, all bathed in golden light - just to assure it will be noticed, it still needs an underscore ...

Related Posts: Hell's Gate, Light on Bobst, Evening Arch, Sink or Swim.

7 comments:

Inês said...

Wow...

Everything's in place, playing their part. The light, the clouds, the underscore...

Beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Great picture. I will be working there starting at the end of September. A night shot of One Worldwide Plaza would be a great subject for a future post--the "diamond" at the top is lit up in a nice contrast to the green roof.

east village idiot said...

I love worldwide plaza. My sister worked for Lifetime - which is housed there. It really is a beautiful building with a lovely plaza to boot.

Anonymous said...

another classic shot!

Anonymous said...

Adding to the information in your post, lawyers in NYC affectionately refer to this building as "The Death Star."

Anonymous said...

I'm not fond of Worldwide Plaza, I've worked there for the last 7years and the interior is the worst designed space I've ever had the misfortune to endure.

Just Roaming The Cities said...

love the colors in this shot!