COMMENT OF FEBRUARY 11, 2019
First Please Note this clarification of my public comment of January 28, given during the public comments phase of the Planning Board meeting that day, which was effectively rendered unintelligible by the chairman's obstruction tactics in the form of constant interruptions. The point of the comment, extemporized upon finding that the board would not entertain my planned presentation originally intended for the previous meeting, was this: The station is shaped like a comet, with the stationhouse being the comet's head, and the low-slung shed supports and shed roof opposite Bloomfield Avenue being the beginning of the tail, with the roof and its supports extending some 250’. This massing is part of the station's self-conscious, early-20th-Century mechanistic character dictated by its utilitarian purpose, and was cognized and consciously emphasized by its planners. The first row of shed supports and low-slung shed roof as seen from Bloomfield Avenue therefore are an integral part of this mechanistic character, being the single most important contributor to the station's extreme incongruousness vis-a-vis its surroundings. The station's uniqueness in this respect as architecture is extremely rare. The front row of shed supports has not to my knowledge been disturbed or the posts moved from their original locations, and, contrary to the assertions of Pinnacle's hired "expert" Bedford, their presence is not compromised or inauthentic in the slightest. Rather, they constitute a crucial and integral part of the station's character which should not be disturbed. This is the primary and essential physical fact of the property which would militate completely against any decision to allow the planned demolition, as seen by any planning board worth its salt.
LACKAWANNA PLAZA ALTERNATE PLAN
PROVING IT'S NOT NECESSARY TO TEAR DOWN THE TRAINSHED IN ORDER TO
HAVE ACCEPTABLE CONDITIONS FOR A NEW APARTMENT BUILDING
LOCATED ON THE EAST PARCEL
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BACKGROUND: IMPROBABLE PLANS
The Lackawanna Plaza Redevelopment Proposal is an improbable idea, preceded by a series of unlikely events, which have served to make the improbable seem that much more likely. You may think the following is too much about trains and irrelevant, but it is EXACTLY related to the demise of the Lackawanna Terminal.
In 1980 New Jersey Transit threw away a twenty-five-hundred foot, completely grade-separated four-track station approach and six-track terminal, with some plan in mind to abandon the only direct route from New York running by to the north, and tie the two lines together east of the now-abandoned terminal using a two-track connecting segment having three tight reverse curves in close succession and a two-track station (with grade crossing) that is so obstructive and slow it debilitates the entire new hybrid line on either side of it. The segment does not meet the customary and widely published standards for a freight siding - never mind main line passenger track. The resulting "Montclair Connection" with its disputative program of property acquisition, certainly cost more than it would have to rehabilitate the existing Montclair terminus.
The current situation with rail infrastructure generally is comparable and directly analogous to that of Montclair Terminal the building. It is one of vast potential that is deteriorating rapidly and becoming subsumed. Obviously the Montclair Branch had - and would now have - the passenger draw necessary to support the large station - without being connected to the Boonton Line. But now the effectively-abandoned 11-mile segment of the only fast route from New York, the Boonton Line, is getting rapidly subsumed, along with its beautiful and unusual high arch bridges in Branch Brook Park, designed as integral elements into the English-style park landscape. (unlike the more recent incinerator) So, on the seeming relatively innocent pretext of the station abandonment and a convenient "connection" the perpetrators have managed to leverage a great deal of destruction, etched in stone and steel, or in this case, the lack of it.
With a new connection in the Meadowlands - a necessity in any modern rail scenario, and encompassing several commuter lines - the Boonton Line is capable of providing 18-minute schedules from Penn Station to Montclair. The line's presence is also crucial for providing acceptable scheduling and capacity to the west in absence of the permanently closed DL&W Main Line. But as it is - from as close in as Upper Montclair - it's quicker just to take the bus. With the Montclair Branch as well - after forty years of New Jersey Transit - the logical expectation would be to find raised platforms (or lowered tracks) at every single station along this rare string of historical gems. Instead the majority rot in abject states of agency disinterest, despite the high passenger counts.
This is the price we are forced to pay to the freight carrier/railroad engineering/FRA revolving door cabal - which holds NJ Transit Rail firmly in its control. The government-sanctioned and enforced monopoly of Positive Train Control is a symptom of it, directed against passenger service - an undue burden laid against resources of the state agencies - with an imposed solution that is anything but foolproof. The cabal got its start about 1945, with a business formula that involved selling off railroad property and pleading poverty, while collecting exorbitantly on an individual basis. It's a common MO. Their methods are reflected in the dilapidated state of our US rail infrastructure, now irreversibly truncated in places, an international disgrace.
INASMUCH AS THE PLANNING BOARD FAILS TO STOP ACTIONS OF THIS KIND THEY ARE PARTICIPATING IN THEM
THE AUBREY LEWIS HOUSE IS A CASE IN POINT
The fact is, without the inexorable destructive progress of the rail cabal your commenter's Montclair Terminal Redux proposal, found elsewhere, would be seen generally as the conventional wisdom and logical path forward. (...not that it's anything unusual that any competent railroad engineer of 1950 wouldn't have come up with if handed the brief.)
The rail proposal contemplates an expansion of Montclair Terminal, to be compatible with the current elevation of Grove Street and completely grade separated (below grade or covered by the built environment) and would use the existing terminal with its current roof configuration.
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LACKAWANNA PLAZA APARTMENTS ALTERNATE PLAN
THIS PROPOSAL IS IN NO WAY INTENDED TO DISAFFIRM THE PROPOSAL OF MISTERS
GREENBAUM AND REIMNITZ TO USE THE TRAINSHED AS A GROCERY STORE. IT IS INTENDED TO COMPLEMENT THAT PROPOSAL.
1. TRAINSHED-FRIENDLY ALTERNATIVE
There has not been a proposal for a trainshed-friendly alternative to Pinnacle's Lackawanna Plaza. Any decision taken without examining such a proposal fails to address this important issue-at-hand. The footprint of the Main Level shown here is about 51,500 feet, including the frontal Esplanade facing Grove Street and it's two stairs. The design (certainly not the only trainshed-friendly option) includes a crosswalk at Grove Street that would provide access by way of Pinnacle's rebuilt stair replica to a new mall entrance facing east, obviating the ramp, with interior lift and tunnel being close as practicably possible. The new entrance (teal) would replace the existing circular pavilion with its unsightly chain link fencing and precipitous retaining walls. The parking garage has an entrance and an exit to support smooth traffic flow. Existing gated access to the adjacent property shown at top, if necessary, might better be relocated to the corner, if that conforms to the applicable code. In case no one noticed, the anachronistic watering trough is not used by horses any more. If it's stable just leave it alone. The mess resulting from trashing of the troughs proper is no easier to clean up with the water than without it. Possibly petunias are the answer, though perennial plants are preferable.
2. CIRCLE-DERIVED PLAN BASED ON ALIGNMENT OF THE TRAINSHED
The west side of the alternate apartment building and a large number of its interior walls take their curved form from trainshed-derived circles centered on the shed's unusual 126 degrees, no minutes, no seconds placement. The interior of the two circles shown above, having a radius of 300 feet, defines the west side of a private 15-foot-wide esplanade walkway fronting the west side of the proposed apartment building. The current plan before the Montclair Planning Board is similarly situated, with its big Grove Street entrance centered and more-or-less aligned with the center longitudinal line of the trainshed, and is generally consistent in this respect going east. Yet it calls for removal of the trainshed from which it gets it bearings. It may be that on downgrading to 154 units from the original 354 it was concluded that a lot of trouble could be spared by not messing with too many sub-surface structures - which would include two important underground culverts that would be encountered with a more meandering plan. Building over or redirecting these culverts could be expected to involve complicated engineering and possibly conflictual environmental and property issues as well.
In any case, the first thing you see when you look at the current plan is that the building is too close to the road. It generally projects a more city-fied appearance than has existed before, and that is not especially desirable at this point along Grove Street - especially given the overwhelming volume(s) of red bricks juxtaposing the old stationhouse. Now that the applicant has been led into final planning and engineering of a buildable project by a more-or-less general laissez-faire bias on the part of officials, that flies in the face of public opinion - not to mention their approval of the previous owner without finding out if he was capable of carrying out his plans - perhaps the town should bear some of the costs of changing gears, if they are to be changed - perhaps by covering some of the costs related to readying the trainshed for new construction and making repairs, while removing some of the oddly fashioned additions made in 1984, some of which I'd say shouldn't have been put there in the first place. You could probably get a federal or state grant for that. The current alternate plan shown here is certainly not immutable, it's still only about half-drawn, and that in this on-center "line drawing" stage with very little specificity, and with no solution for its load bearing structure. But it does show how to get around the problems presented by the Trainshed-Grove Street conflict - solved as it should be. (and should have been.) It's likely the alternate apartment block could be significantly altered, pared down, and still present a desirable object for realization. The trainshed in it's current state though needs considerable investment to coexist with any apartment building in that location.
I certainly don't know how anyone comes into possession of a prestige property like that. It's a prize, a status symbol, a big feather in the cap - but it's a labor of love. If I were the historically conscious obsessive type you'd expect to take on a thing like that I'd want to address the tacky mullions in the lunette windows of the stationhouse right away! I'm sure they'd be willing to do one of them for $500,000 or so.
3. ENTRANCE PLAZA AND THE AREA ACROSS GROVE STREET
The large area east of Grove Street would contain a pavement-demarcated mall entrance area, with the main line of access also demarcated (in pink) and directed as coming from under the curved private esplanade. At its easternmost (not shown) this line of access - a 30-foot-wide concourse - would be reached through a ground-level entrance giving onto an open lobby and parking area under the apartments - the said entrance partially shown at lower right in blue. (The building is quite narrow at that point.) The mall entrance area (teal marquee) is flanked by two curved stone or stone-clad backless sitting benches. (which might be a tad long) The entrance marquee, extending at its center 12.5' from a new vertical entrance wall as shown, would preferably be cantilevered from the structure of the road bridge. The new entrance would require no change to the road's vertical alignment. The additional enclosed space thus afforded, located between four replica pilaster torchiers of the bridge reduced to conform to the height of the road (the height reduction left conspicuously undone in current drawings) amounts to about 7800 feet - less the area of the narrow tunnel associated with the existing circular pavilion. The new space would be a good deal more useful in terms of rent-generating potential than the old tunnel.
The mall entrance beneath the new marquee is envisioned as having three "portals" derived from the the heretofore invisible end-on section of the Blinder train shed. (See the illustration below) Only the center portal would be used for the doors of the entrance. Some special treatment for reveals of the side portals is easily imagined, with additional bench-type seating or floor-level-or box-enclosed planters on location. The marquee - reminiscent of the current Delphic temple arrangement - should have sufficient frontal ledge to support a new "Lackawanna Plaza" sign, which, being of modern light-generating means wouldn't weigh very much - and it should also be dimmer than before so as not to offend tenants in the apartments. The sign is a subtle and highly adept nod to 20th Century American railroad architecture from the 1984 mall design, which otherwise was not particularly subtle or adept in that respect. The new sign might result in increased size of lettering versus before, though not necessarily. Given its reasonable dimensions, the marquee could probably be cantilevered from the existing road-supporting structure, or one concurrently built, dispensing with the classical-style columns of the existing Delphic temple arrangement.
EXISTING CONDITIONS
The area shown in yellow across the street was apparently the location of the back-of-house infrastructure and ventilation plant for the mall. The entire apparition of this east-facing jumble of walls and roofline along Grove Street as configured - with its incessantly repeating procession of red bricks and white quoins (a shamelessly inept reference to the old stationhouse) unceremoniously jacked up in the middle to accommodate the height of the road and forming the trainshed wall with bare concrete subtending, surmounted by a dilapidated metal shed roof of ubiquitous, dated design, with this in turn surmounted by several disused ventilation oddities, stood stilt-like on long-bracket legs bolted to the roof - this is an exercise in grotesquerie. Add to that the unmitigated weirdness of the isolated remains from the old bridge - with its weary decorative concrete railing perched precipitously overhead, tilting in conformance to the old grade, amidst the crumbling torchiers, and the stair to nowhere now comically landing more than a body length above a patched-up, concrete-walled expanse located as if by accident along the way - and you have something that would be very difficult wholly and intentionally by design to achieve. But it was.
POSSIBILITIES
At about 1,800 square feet on the upper level alone (this with an ample setback from the current building line) the yellow-delimited area could serve as a fantastic open-to-the-air eating place, with roofline to some degree imitative of the trainshed and the structure securely closable, at off-hours and for the winter months. A large number of containerized plants might help to enable this. The trainshed terminates 25' back from the road and its end elevation (see below) would look great with opaque glass lights separated by several regular vertical barlines, or perhaps clear - for curious restaurant-goers to view the goings-on at the main level below. The trainshed reaches ten or eleven feet above the curb at this point according to my Google-Earth-enabled calculations - considerably lower than certain renditions of the retrofitted metal roof. Compact stairs and a limited-use, new-style sleek lift might provide vertical access from the interior. Acoustics-conscious design would mitigate traffic noise. Some kind of stepped-or-otherwise plinth, with attention to what is directionally concealed through careful placement of wall elements, might eliminate the necessity for bespoke stairs, while effectively serving to seduce potential diners to make the climb. The pantile dormers could certainly be incorporated gracefully into such a plan. Or perhaps just a containerized garden nook would be in order, albeit one of extreme dimensions. This could be made to show the trainshed to stunning effect - though a way to mitigate its no-man's-land qualities would have to be found. A lot depends on achieving a design with real flair for the restaurant idea to work, without going too far. Perhaps a symmetrical combination of garden nook and restaurant would be best.
4. TUDOR ARCHES
The Tudor arches, or "four-centered arches" - three of them in section view - were to my knowledge first mooted as a part of Pinnacle's Lackawanna Plaza Project by an architecture firm previous to the current one, that participated on the brief, depicting the arrangement to pleasing effect in a water-color-type perspective that is no longer available on the internet. The firm's putative discovery opened up a lot of potential for the trainshed architecturally, and it was on remembering the sight of this perspective drawing that I decided to include such a a set of arches in my east-entrance-with-marquee, shown in plan above, which had previously had me stymied on how to configure the elevation.
As a matter of fact the whole project as you see it, now barely started, had me stymied - and gratefully so - as I had no plans to undertake a drawing - until the December 17 Montclair Planning Board meeting during which the idea of the curved esplanade came to me in a flash - the east entrance having materialized about a month earlier. Grateful (though I'm thankful for the divine spark of course) because working in Google Earth is exceedingly laborious and time-consuming (though the platform does allow calculating accurate headings down to 1/100 of a degree and gives satellite survey figures a lot more detailed than the USGS Topographical Map - for free.) and because I am occupied with a backlog of several other time-consuming Kamikaze Missions involving Google Earth and rail planning, for which the platform is more well suited. My big compass giving out at least ten years ago, and no place to accommodate the mess of analogue drawing, I have not drawn any architecture in years save one train station, and that was done in Google Earth. Although it's many times faster just to scribble small-scale circles on an 8.5 x 11" sheet, with Google Earth you work so slow that you rarely make any big mistakes - but they take a long time to fix, and generally require a period of recuperation before that can be undertaken.
After the December 17 meeting I took up the esplanade idea immediately, thinking it would take only a few days to work up a sufficiently convincing diagram for me to lay it down. I am sometimes subject to such delusions, maybe for the best. In any case the Main Floor plan drawing reached its current state right before leaving for the January 14 Planning Board meeting, with the Upper Parking Level defined in little more than outline form, and the 2nd Floor likewise, though I intended to present the lot at the meeting, and had arranged with Ms. Talley the Board Secretary to come early so she could put the pictures in the board's computer, where they still remain as far as I know. The Upper Parking Level reached completion (in this preliminary but definitive on-center line drawing stage) right before the January 28th meeting - and as you may know I intended to make a presentation therein as well - with the 2nd Floor file somehow getting corrupted and lost, preserved only in a picture seen below.
5. TUDOR ARCHES UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Tudor arches are sometimes called four-centered arches because they generally include four circular segments in their outline - two big and two small - as the picture illustrates. On finding the 1983 drawings for the mall thanks to their posting at the Planning Board website, I found a profusion of drawings based on various versions of the four-centered arch mode included in the plans, but these were not to my knowledge used in the mall as built. The existing arrangements to support the continuous roof consist of tangent segments on both the top and underside of the added-on-to platform shed supports, forming the arches - this according to my remembrance of several pictures I have viewed closely, holding the instant anomaly in mind. (I have never been inside the mall, but did visit Pig and Prince several times when it was a Pizza Hut.)
A lucky thing happened while going through these 1983 Tudor arch drawings to see what makes them tick. In order to measure them it was necessary to paste the images into Google Earth, and that entails adjusting the X and Y axes or "aspect ratio" of the pictures so the dimensions align with the original drawing. In adjusting the aspect ratio for one of the drawings I accidentally squished the three-arch section to 90' as opposed to the actual 120' - the distance measured on-center between the outside shed supports, as well as the two sets of pilaster torchiers. That it took me quite a while to notice this would indicate that it doesn't make much difference if the arches are not in exact agreement with the dimensions of the trainshed, and this is the enabling predicate on which their presence in the proposed east entrance is based. Otherwise the torchiers would cut off part of the two outside arches. Only the center arch would be used for passing in and out of the building, the other two could be treated with some arrangement for the reveals and/or sitting benches or raised planters.
6. FOYER, PARLOR, OFFICES AND LOBBY
The design is big on public rooms. Starting at upper right, two sets of white painted multi-lighted double doors open into the hall and elevator lobby from the Esplanade. The Foyer at lower right shows decorative circles in the floor based more on what it's possible to draw in Google Earth than any calculated scheme. They are intended to emphasize the circularity of the room, which would be enhanced by a preferably pre-fab, simply formed flat dome suspended from the upper structure with a light in the middle. Thus the ceiling height on the perimeter would have to be about as low as legally possible, but this serves to make more out of the resulting sensation when one arrives at the broad and gently inclined stairs to the Parlor. (They are huge. By comparison the piano is 7' long.)
I also concur with the lady commenting at meetings more than once, that the likewise-curved area across Grove Street should include some kind of pedestrian access, necessarily outdoor rather than an entrance, to the public facilities of the Greenbaum-Reiminitz proposal. While stairs would be necessary, the sidewalk in its existing form more-or-less would provide "close-as-practicably-possible" ADA access otherwise.
The quiet hall entrance and curved section of wall in the Lobby are particularly classy devices and the latter would require a few classy-looking sticks of furniture - on both sides, with a couch by the elevator. (The acute corner with glass looking toward the Esplanade is for the topiary plant.) The floors are, perhaps arbitrarily, scaled at 9' between the levels, with the Foyer and most of the Main Level at 244' - and the Parlor at 240. The four big parlor windows are contained in a cushioned window seat extension that protrudes 2' from the structure, making the width of the room 40' if it's included - though the centerline isn't based on that. The length is 80'. The sliding wooden entrance door would not be as represented but looks better that way in the drawing. It would still have six sliding panels and would probably require pantographs in the floor or connecting cables and pulleys to make the panels work right.
With a volume like this there is no shortage of opportunities to create oppressive windowless spaces, so the best option is to waste some if it. The cavernousness is felt most strongly in the office area and lobby, so the office floor has been lowered 15" with the attendant ADA ramps with box planters in front to block the sidelong view of the slant. (The ADA railing by the elevator has a radius too long due to - exigencies: the inside railing had to be traced off the larger curve of the platform drawn with the circle tool using numerous little lines - because you can't save a circle that small.) Even with the ramps, the office area is a few hundred feet larger than that in current plans, and has two entrances, one from the curved hall - for showing guests the barrier free environment. A partial glass wall at the transverse hall located 4' up or a Holidex check-in window in the Lobby are not ruled out. The low floor would allow a peopled area above the office area at 247' versus the 2nd Floor's general level otherwise of 253, a tight squeeze. The result is a device to address the cavernousness of the Lobby - a slightly cantilevered balcony close to the ceiling held down by long banquettes (pink) forming part of the Game Room. (Of course this could all be left out.) The 12.5' front hall off the porte cochère entrance leads to the Upper Parking Level. The stair opposite the hall door leading to the courtyard and having two flanking window seats (top) is not legitimately included in the Main Level drawing but leads to the Game Room - forming the start of the main stair in this, the tallest part of the building, with the next flight accomplished by two flanking stairs in the opposite direction.
7. SQUARE FEET
The Main Level, shown above, is labeled as having 22,400 square feet of occupiable apartment space which isn't quite right. Four inches was added to the inside of the on-center perimeter walls of each apartment to arrive at that figure. How I arrived at that formula is another story. Fifteen of the 27 Main Level apartments have direct access to both interior halls and outdoor amenities: Courtyard, Esplanade and Pool. I have been at pains to avoid chopping up the apartment looking onto the pool area at lower right in order to provide access to the central elevator lobby (round) but believe access from the pool area would be mandatory - though it's a little overly public - in addition to egress provided through the Bloomfield Avenue-aligned lobby. An alternate configuration for this is prepared but not shown.
The square pavilion at right is amply proportioned (50 x 50) with the aim of providing quick parking induction for the cars below, as well as having some kind of door for entry at the right end of the Esplanade. I believe the main security post should be located downstairs in the lower right corner of the pavilion though it hasn't been drawn yet, with a door onto the plaza along the left wall. To take up space in an exceptionally-legal way try one of my many mid-century clichés - a broadly curving stairway concentric with the parking level curbline. (For another try the sawtooth apartments, below.) The pavilion takes advantage of the conflict at this point between radial and square-aligned lines to provide the pink-line-defined alcove at upper right providing - more space. Thankfully, the main level is only one story - a health club? - with a surrounding mildly-decorative band of windows at the center of its outside elevations and a slightly overhanging hipped roof terminating in a Chinese-style point (preferably with curves) at the top. This would keep the pavilion in reasonable proportional equity with the very-low-slung train station - as would the next level of apartments located above the four wings describing the numeral 6 and topping out at about the height of the neighboring apartment complex. In the southern sector this would take the form of perpendicular Ziggerat-style set-backs as against the sawtooth apartments in the north. All would be heavily dependent on containerized planting and the infrastructure that entails. In the case of tenants who prefer not to maintain their plants a building-run service would have to be provided.
8. SAWTOOTH APARTMENTS
This sketch, superimposed over the Main Floor Drawing while it was under construction, was done before the 2nd Floor Drawing - which was lost and never finished - and after figuring out how to draw the sawteeth over a flat spot in Iowa. (all of which could be done extremely quickly using an 8.5 x 11 sheet taped to a desk and a big compass with its point positioned below the paper using a ruler - probably quicker than CAD.) Sorry, the front line of the Esplanade is missing. The sawtooth rectangles are not as close to the curved perimeter of the apartments on the floor below as they appear - or as they are drawn, due to my early decision not to double the number of nodes in the curves. The five Sawtooth Apartments are each larger than the four front-aligned apartments along the Esplanade. Numerous desirable options exist for configuration of the entrances and garden designs, or dividing the rectangles for more units. A way of providing three means of access to each unit shown would have a glassed-in hall above, barely visible from the courtyard, with broad interior floating stairs having square corner landings midway, descending into the apartments - if such a thing is thought desirable. A couple of outside stairs to the Esplanade would be in order, aligned with private terraces of two of the Esplanade apartments, which could have a certain extent of blind wall or tall fence to accommodate them.
9. UPPER PARKING LEVEL
The Upper Parking Level plan is important because it's the most difficult structural leap of the building. Whereas there is some degree of design latitude on the Lower Parking Level because of its larger area, here there is a trade-off between the parking spaces and the means of vertical support - which can become confining as to its vertical extent if too infrequent laterally. No solution has immediately come to mind of your would-be architect/engineer concerning the load bearing structure. (Sorry, the cross-hatching - as at lower left - is left out of the upper left corner; I neglected to include the stairs from the 12.5' Main Level porte cochère hall exit; and of course the down ramp at upper right should have a rip/tear representation to show that the lower part's in the wrong drawing. The ascending ramp with flanking parking spaces at left should have an arrow and a rip/tear as well.)
I see the entire ground-to-ceiling perimeter interface, which varies in height, as having Trumpite-Wall oxidized metal or Corten see-through supports - this being at least one elementary structural solution. There are four elevators and two lifts, with one of the lifts (Bloomfield Avenue) serving three levels. The drawings represent lifts of the cheapest 36" variety, but they could be artfully enclosed with walls and/or glass doors as seen opposite the porte cochère. (separate sheet) The Bloomfield Avenue elevator does not serve the Upper Parking Level and is greyed-out. (It could probably be made to serve the 244' level of the square pavilion given a door on the other side of the car. A lift in the pavilion might also be made to serve the assumed security post and curb level of the garage below.) The three green lines to the left side of the picture represent grade transitions of dimensions unknown to your strictily-railroads-unlettered-expert. The area located under the parlor/offices section is defined by two of the green lines and represents a middle level, with cars proceeding to it from the Lower Level on a ramp at the top of the picture, flanked by laterally inclined parking spaces. The unfinished curved parking area to the right might take 15 spaces; the north wall takes 21. The 25' x 30' two-way-traffic-crossing at the central pedestrian concourse would require barriers to consolidate the traffic, and prominent stop signs. The rear entrance and passenger drop-off gives access to the concourse by way of a glassed-in vestibule and a ten-foot-wide general-use ramp 18' long - enough to negotiate any grade that might or might not exist. Sitting benches are provided flanking the glassed-in ramp and abutting the curved wall at one end - with the said curved solid wall(s) being good candidates for painted murals on the outside, garage elevation. Also the curved side of the pool volume would serve well as a mural.
10. FOOTPRINTS
To keep the courtyard and the culvert, take off the northeast corner of the extended parking garage with an r = 75' curve. Build that part first with the new culvert alignment at the perimeter of the curve. Parking spaces along the curve would have parallel white lines running perpendicular to the north wall. To avoid the culvert completely make a 6-shaped mass using an r = 390' circle centered on the trainshed common center: yields 15' Esplanade plus 75' apartment mass. The Foyer would be scrapped, with building occupying the 7.5' Grove St. setback of the building described here. But the former-described configuration, with the courtyard, is necessary if a more-or-less compliant parking garage is to be achieved. Work on the big culvert would certainly be less intrusive at the adjacent property than the permanent alterations planned for the parking area at TD Bank.
11. MAIN ENTRANCE
You may have noticed that the porte cochère has extremely angular corners. That's because the desired r = 15" circles are time-consuming to trace over the unsavable-at-that-size circle tool. The corner circles are intended to reflect the curve in the sidewalk edge at right, by the exed-out parking space. Also the door is missing. (but that's ok because you do the door last.) It would be of preferably broad, glass, double, sliding design, and requires a lateral rectangular stepping block extending not half the width of the 5' sidewalk, to reach the putative 240' level of the building from the putative 239' level of the ground.
It was first intended that - in order to avoid a ridiculous cantilever in three directions - there would be two columns to support the porte cochère at its outside extremity, anchored in a sturdily reinforced planter. But that was a tight squeeze for two cars to pass, so a single column has been substituted using a putative supporting mechanism that reflects a shape which you might recognize...
12. ANNUIT COEPTIS
May The Gods Smile Upon Our Endeavor
END
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Bruce W. Hain Queens, New York
B.A. Music, Marlboro College '79 February 5, 2019
(Sole Academic Credentials)
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