Some of my early memories of Times bylines were of hers. The woman with the aristocratic name, who it turns out was married to a Huxtable, herself coming from Manhattan's Upper West Side via Hunter College. As absolute a New Yorker as a wooden turnstile and an IRT train.
As eloquent as an architecture critic can be, they don't seem to prevent the bad stuff from getting off the drawing boards. The guess is they are powerless over the aesthetics, or lack of them, of others. They are like the pathologist who knows everything, but the patient is dead. The pile has been built. Now it's either praised or vilified.
Today's obituary reveals that Ms. Huxtable wouldn't say what her favorite buildings were. My guess is a thorough reading would reveal the ones she disliked the most, and it would be up to you to rank them on the level of her crafted bile.
Since today's obituaries don't outright name her least favorites, I will tell you mine. These actually make me mad when I get near them. The Fashion Institute of Technology on 7th Avenue, in the upper 20s, an extended bunker that is built over a cross street. How this mass ever left a drawing board remains beyond me.
The next building I shake my head is what is now known as the O'Toole building, also on 7th Avenue, near the old St. Vincent's Hospital. It was originally built for the Maritime Union, when shipping was big in New York and is meant to evoke portholes. It does evoke.
And last, and hardly least, might be a building that Ms. Huxtable might have been made to confirm was her least favorite, The MetLife building behind Grand Central Terminal. This was formally known as the PanAm building and when it was finished it had the most square footage of office space anywhere in the world outside of the Pentagon. It also had helicopters landing on its roof until one fell apart on landing and caused several deaths. It seemed Midtown didn't have enough going on.
The NYT obituary quotes Ms. Huxtable's take on it from a non-aesthetic point of view. "...an extraordinary burden to existing pedestrian and transportation facilities...Its antisocial character directly contradicts the teachings of Walter Gropius, who has collaborated in its design."
The building is plain butt-ugly. Situated behind Grand Central, straddling the block the way it does, and dominating the skyline from north and south of the Terminal, the building has been called Park Avenue's "garage door."
Personally, when viewed from the right perspective from either uptown or downtown, I think it's Hoover Dam.
Ada was being too nice.
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