Since 2019, the partially completed skyscraper at 45 Park Place in TriBeCa, between West Broadway and Church Street, has been in a dormant state following a Stop Work Order from the DOB issued in December of that year. The unfinished and unsightly tower looms over its surrounding portion of Lower Manhattan like a giant, silent sentinel, with a spindly crane perched atop a thin metal exoskeleton affixed to the building’s westerly wall. On windier days – like today – the crane actively swings worryingly around like a gargantuan weathervane. According to my friends at TriBeCa Citizen, the DOB allegedly makes routine inspections to the site and the crane, although further construction seems indefinitely stalled. TriBeCa residents are understandably displeased.
Adding arguable insult to injury, at some point, in recent months, an intrepid graffiti artist named RAMS somehow got inside 45 Park Place, ascended to its unfinished rooftop, and daringly rappelled down each of the four sides of the tower to leave huge, colorful tags. While an impressive-if-astonishingly-foolhardy feat, the end results lend proceedings at 45 Park Place a further veneer of neglect and decrepitude.
Personally speaking, the graffiti part doesn’t really bother me. If anything, RAMS did the community a backhanded favor by generating a new stir around a problem that continues to be seemingly ignored. By calling attention to it, perhaps there’ll be some movement.
But I’ll say this. To stand on the street and see that massive metal crane swing around in the wind is pretty chilling.
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