This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Via friends (and later greg.org) comes the unfortunate Daniel Libeskind condo on the shores of the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky across from Cincinnati. Notice anything similar from, oh say, the World Trade Center Master Plan writ small?
Just look at this turd of a building which reportedly was rejected months ago at the planning commission, but is back again after the design has been “altered.” If altering means adding people to the rendering, then according to those close to the goings-on in Cincinnati, then yes: the building was “altered.”
Additionally, greg.org talks about the Empire State Building’s “Mini-me,” the RJ Reynolds headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC. But actually Cincinnati has it’s own pre-Empire State building, the Carew Tower which is magnitudes closer in lineage to Empire State than RJ Reynolds:

Carew Tower, originally at ohio old photos

Built by the same architects, Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, prior to Empire State, the Carew Tower is clad in the same material and system as the Empire State Building. The word on the street – by my old architecture history professor – is that as the Carew Tower was being completed, the developer of the Empire State needed a building, and needed it built fast. So the architects used the exact same building set from Carew Tower, just stretched it out in various directions to fit the site and added extra floors. The spire was added to compete with the then under construction Chrysler Building.
This story might be apophrical, but it would explain the reported two-week period which Shreve, Lamb & Harmon pumped out building drawings for Empire State.
25 March 2005
Of course, the design gurus at the The Cincinnati Enquirer are in support of the Libeskind tower: Bold design of proposed tower would soar as regional landmark.