Newsday from New York, New York • 116

I C28 Jewels on the horizon recent of diem Times Square Tower drsignrd by Skidmore Owings and Merrill wifi open soon like ns neighbors it aspires to jazz heat mixed with corporate cooL like all skyscrapers Foster's and PtanrfS mW mlw wwinmtf mw The Hearst corporation will take over its whole new location bringing under one roof publications currently scattered across nine midtown addresses The Times will move from its location on West 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues to just thelower portion of its new tower the project developer Forest City Ratner is trying to rent out die rest of the building Yet these structures are intended not only to squeeze a dollar out of every bolt but to make strong ititwnwitf of "nlbirtliip plrotinn Nation's Fjrst f' Escalator Insbalted at Coney Island TOWER from C27 Hearsf cravings lor boldness and modernity with a crystal box supported not in traditional skyscrapers by a load-bearing concrete core but by an external honeycomb of steel which the architect calls a of beams Thg wliHmuMp between the near and the old is one of oolite separation Foster has building and die new 42-stoiy palace seems to float above and behind the original shelL The setback pleased the TjtvimarW Pinwllnw PnmmiMlnni which amiably waved the project on when it came up for approval in 200L The original has become all facade the new one consists of naked structure Where Urban emphasized the comers with exclamation points of fluted concrete columns Foster marks them with geometric gaps following a rigorous logic of triangles combining into hexagons: Look Ma no vertical lineal Seen from the inside these bird-beak comers will appear as -breathtaldngly glass walla' sidewalk setpiece will be relegated to a diameter nde while the rad drama takes place above The Hearst and Times projects will fill in a media corridor that runs from the Times Square agglomeration of Reuters CandtNast and MTV among others to the Time Warner Center at (fohimbus Circle an irony to tUg of communicator Even as the industry grapples with a nebukus digital future it is still reckon- Hearst and The Times 1 from the 19di century to become 1 motional hriwmnriw hi llw 2fhh Wflilg the millennium was supposed to herald the dispersal of mediamto cyberspace and suburban office parks these two dike many others) have bet not just on real estate and location but 1 nighig jinuwf nf onriiitiwn- turn: Place supposed to matter but media architecture shows that place matters more than says Aurora Wallace an architectural historian at New York University and author of the forthcoming book "The Architecture of not on the skyline you The Times and Hearst buildings do more than proclaim the supremacy of their media brands They also represent a long tradition of magnanimous Motivate architecture as civic gesture Toe 16th century palazzos of Florence provide one example Rockefeller t'jrntmr another What these two new towers qualify as urban gifts is that they are better than the bottom line demands Recent midtown architecture ex- Eas not risentttAudAt Columbus Circle die Time Warner Center throws open the doors of its but it has also crowned the West Side with two large dark forms like the shadows of a pair of gangsters in a dank film noir This building is all business A dozen Mocks south a complicated coalition of public officials andprivate interests has transformed Times Square at die base into a public of a Hatch that are than The most Both are also architectural research facilities They have been engineered to withstand our new range of nightmare scenarios and allow thousands of people to flee with maximum efficiency They aim to consume as little energy as possible and set ambitious sards for green design Having aiqiensed with the traditional doughnut of cubicles wrapped around a central elevator core strive to distribute daylight and views to every rank of worker The communal spaces have a magiiifirfiilly imiin risai gramlnir The Times boasts a garden cloister on -the ground floor Hearst a cafeteria in a lofty atrium "The architects have made spaces for wmkers to relax and interact which is a whole lot different than the American mentality of gathering around the water says architectural historian Carol Willis who runs the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City buildings are a test case for New York more to build a new paradigm it be attractive enough for tenants tO demand it and wnnnmiral enough for developers to supply it? I now but certainly doing a lot of research and development which is not exactly typical for an office building in New Designed for old-fashioned companies that perform fundamentally the same tasks they did more than 100 years ago each tower also pays its own architectural homage Foster's Hearst dwarves and detaches itself from proclaiming how far the art has evolved in 75 years And even in all its glittering modernity the Times Tower gestures to-waxd die 19th century impulse to decorate the city Itsheat-deflecting ceramic tubes recall the elegant terra cotta ornamentation on sun civic monuments as the Woohvorth Building says Willis "Whether Piano was --conscious of it or not really part of a New York At the moment that tradition is partly faitha Hondo wfonfloHonoiirfo British i fined in Europe I around the globe FOr years New York City has watched other lies wmle it tolerated towers of modest ilUliivtlnn With the planned rebirth of its downtown and tms pair of midtown jewels in th offings Manhattan la rmnn again tending to its skyline silhouette qtjysJHEfTgfe 1 Mil i iui lil1 Ina I1' 4imi- 'Vh'Sb 50357 WEEKDAY! IT HAPPENED IN NEW YORK UFA 1S Long Island Rail Road IT HAPPENED IN NEW YORK IS A DAILY FEATURE PRODUCED BY THE NEWSDAY MARKETING DEPARTMENT riawhi.