Midtown is getting yet another hotel, this time courtesy of Peter Poon (whose only rival in terms of ugly buildings is Gene Kaufman).
The hotel will be 37 stories and 405 feet tall per DOB permits, with 282 rooms. Given the building’s location, the project will be unnoticeable. Still, there has to be some point where the numerous heinous hotels rising in the city go from being benign to becoming an actual issue.
Peter Poon’s website lacks renderings of the tower, but a Wired New York forumer found the below rendering of the project. The hotel actually doesn’t look as terrible as most of Poon’s work, which includes numerous new roach-hotels that have sprung up across Manhattan.
Judging a building by a night-time rendering is difficult, but it seems the tower will be simple. Poon has designed a plain glass box with plenty of room for advertising–a trademark of buildings in the Times Square neighborhood.
The negative to this plain glass box–besides the bland design–is the context of the development. Both of the building’s neighbors feature historic and beautiful architecture, particularly the Knickerbocker Hotel (to the right in the above photo). New York features countless examples where architectural styles are juxtaposed against one another, but this isn’t a case where it’s aesthetically pleasing.
Groundbreaking has already occurred, and given the project’s small size, the hotel should be complete by the end of 2013.
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