66 Avenue Rd

[buildup]

I've only been on this forum for 5 years, but I finally got something right! I'll acknowledge that - aside from Urban Shocker - I probably have less architectural/development insight than anyone here.

Anyway, I had speculated that the building directly north of the majestic Prince Arthur (Avenue & Yorkville) which has a deteriorating retail component, a flaking exterior, and a horrific paint job; could in fact benefit hugely from a recladding of sorts. Its an important location and the building's shape (form?) is very interesting.

Anyway, they have started repairing the exterior and I think this building is going to be a show piece!

 

[Redroom Studios]

there ya go... youre hired! and that was quite a shot against U.S. there...

 

[buildup]

Not a shot against US. I am inspired by his courage, against all odds, to grow and to learn. I take some pride in having helped him along myself.

What ever happened to Zephyr?

 

[Redroom Studios]

he got tired of debating about 1 St Thomas? that guy was a bit of a snob...

 

[buildup]

I think he moved to the United States, he may have mentionned Arizona.

 

[adma]

I've only been on this forum for 5 years, but I finally got something right! I'll acknowledge that - aside from Urban Shocker - I probably have less architectural/development insight than anyone here.

Anyway, I had speculated that the building directly north of the majestic Prince Arthur (Avenue & Yorkville) which has a deteriorating retail component, a flaking exterior, and a horrific paint job; could in fact benefit hugely from a recladding of sorts. Its an important location and the building's shape (form?) is very interesting.

Anyway, they have started repairing the exterior and I think this building is going to be a show piece!

Early 80s WZMH or something, I think--an earlier attempt to bridge the Avenue Rd divide. Definitely the kind of late-Modern brick condo stuff that typically gets branded "dated" today, from a stylistic or urbanistic viewpoint--and I can't say I'd actively rally against the urge to spiff up or even "urbanize" the joint (i.e. bring stuff up to the street front, rather than the existing setback upsy-downsy).

What's happening to it retailwise? Last I noticed, it seemed to be a place for Yorkville dowagers to go for their Botox treatments...

 

[buildup]

Retail is the challenge. Non-street level, where you need to either climb or descend a few stairs is unappealing to shoppers not least because they can't see the displays. Having to descend is even worse because those entrances seem to capture debris and stagnant pools of water.

So I don't know what they can do about that.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I would have thought you'd be in your element standing in debris and stagnant pools of water, your Mister Softee truck parked at the curb, passing ice cream cones up to your regular customers as they go in for their Botox treatments.

This never was a pretty sight ( the building, that is ). Even when it was new it seemed to be trying too hard to be the next big thing, after York Square and several other similarly brick-clad infill retail buildings in Yorkville. Steps down to a basement level, steps up to more retail, smart little inner courtyards with coffee shops etc. - it was very much the look in the '70s as Yorkville moved on from the hippie era.

 

[adma]

Steps down to a basement level, steps up to more retail, smart little inner courtyards with coffee shops etc. - it was very much the look in the '70s as Yorkville moved on from the hippie era.

More like it alluded to "smart little inner courtyards" that didn't exist--unless the moated forecourt counts.

Remember, too, that this was "the look" in its early 80s senescence: a laboured, ill-at-ease quasi-echo of/response to Hazelton Lanes across the way. In a way, I see it as the kind of building which, once its triumphal-arched neighbour to the south was built a generation later, might have said: "Gee. I wish I looked like that." A building for closeted Chedingtonistas, IOW, because nobody short of Philip Johnson would have been caught dead designing alla Chedington back then.

Given the urbanscape on this stretch of Avenue Road, perhaps the currently most underconsidered building hereabouts is Jack Diamond's c1990 Hazelton Lanes North--a poignant artifact from the time when "postmodern" urban design didn't yet mean Chedingtonista parvenu excess. (Definitely something for those who get misty-eyed memories of KPMB's AGO.)

 

[buildup]

Nice to have you back on-line US. Putting yourself back together after those weekends takes longer and longer every year aye?

So is 66 Avenue irredeemably outdated, broken-down and unlikely to succeed even with a new paint job (US?)

I think in some strange way it was inspired by Habitat, on the cheap though.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Anything outdated, broken-down, and unlikely to succeed can be revived with a new paint job - you should know that, dear.

Thanks adma - I had no idea Diamond did the supersizing of the Lanes. If I recall, they were declining even before the ( several? ) rather ill-conceived renovations happened. Replacing the cute little ice skating rink with that ghoulishly vacant eating place wasn't too clever, for one thing. When it was a smallish, high-end shopping centre ( and most of the important galleries were in Jerkville ) in the early to mid-80s it was a swell place to shop and hang out.

But I don't think the building under discussion was ever much of a destination - perhaps because it was on the west side of Avenue Road, and a bit to the north, so it required a detour to get there?

 

[freshcutgrass]

Classic love-it-or-hate-it building.

Not only do I love it, but if I had a choice of any Yorkville condo, 4 Lowther would probably be it.

I love its bravado of design, which is as effective today as it was when it was built (I would definitely not call this building dated).

I love its location (the pretentious rif-raf of Yorkville across the street, yet with the subdued quiet elegance of the Annex at your door).

Zip me back to 1984, and put me in a Jay Spectre designed suite please.

 

[adma]

Looking at it again today, maybe I'm being harsh--still, those projecting conservatory-balconies seem clunkier than they might have been five years earlier, so it's clearly from that awkward transitional phase between the "modern" and the "postmodern" (the latter best--if too mildly, tokenly--expressed in the varied brick pattern).

And as for Hazelton Lanes North, it's clearly one of those benchmarks along the way to "Paul Bedford midrise streetwall urbanism"--had it been just a straightforward condo with street retail rather than an extension of Hazelton Lanes, it wouldn't have had had that spectre of early 90s failure hanging over it...