NYC vanaf Empire State Building, originally uploaded by FaceMePLS

With the unveiling of five West Side Yard proposals this weekend, there has been major coverage of the different proposals, with all their archiporn models and renderings. Yet unreported is a major significance to the city and its citizens: if Varnado Realty Trust is chosen to develop the West Side Yards, they will directly control own or partially control a majority of property from Broadway to the Hudson between 30th and 30th Streets.
The Vornado holdings are vast around the USA, but their holdings in Manhattan, and specifically in Midtown is spectacular. Below, are holdings west of Broadway in Midtown:

• One Penn Plaza – 2,585,000 sf
• Two Penn Plaza – 1,546,000 sf
• 11 Penn Plaza – 1,103,000 sf
• 330 West 34th Street – 637,000 rsf
• 100 West 33rd Street – 1,040,000 sf
• Hotel Pennsylvania – est. 2,000,000 sf (source)
• Moynihan Station – est. 5,400,000 sf (source)
• West Side Yards – est 5,400,000 sf office & 6,400,000 sf residential (source)

If you add this up, you get a staggering realization of how much space Vornado controls: 26,111,000 sf of office and residential space.
While we have no position on which company’s proposal should win out at the West Side Yards, knowing that a single company can dominate an area to the extent Vornado can must be taken into account. In the end it probably won’t matter if Vornado controls this much area, but the sheer numbers at play is amazing – and the associated power, influence and political pressure which will come to bear is equally amazing – even for Manhattan.

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Illustration: Copyrighted Map Courtesy of Telegeography
While smogr is not a political website, politics influences design, architecture and urbanism.

NSA’s Lucky Break: How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World
A lucky coincidence of economics is responsible for routing much of the world’s internet and telephone traffic through switching points in the United States, where, under legislation introduced this week, the U.S. National Security Agency will be free to continue tapping it.

It is not by coincidence that the world’s centers of commerce and technology are dense with data transfer facilities. A corollary to the 2007 Submarine Cable Map.

Prada Tokyo, originally uploaded by oTov

New National Gallery / Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin), originally uploaded by manuela.siener

Next to MoMA, a Tower Will Reach for the Stars:

A new 75-story tower designed by the architect Jean Nouvel for a site next to the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown promises to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation. Its faceted exterior, tapering to a series of crystalline peaks, suggests an atavistic preoccupation with celestial heights. It brings to mind John Ruskin’s praise for the irrationality of Gothic architecture: “It not only dared, but delighted in, the infringement of every servile principle.”
Commissioned by Hines, an international real estate developer, the tower will house a hotel, luxury apartments and three floors that will be used by MoMA to expand its exhibition space. The melding of cultural and commercial worlds offers further proof, if any were needed, that Mr. Nouvel is a master at balancing conflicting urban forces.

Did anyone else open their Arts Section this morning and exclaim, Holy Crap!

Arched people, originally uploaded by Miodrag Bogdanovic