A visibly secure corporate Elysium which makes no attempt at connecting to the existing Manhattan grid and whose effete gestures at 'arts integration' are eclipsed by endless 'elite' retailing? Not to mention the embarrassing EB-5 debacle or the fact that Stephen Ross himself is a pretty hardcore piece of shit.

I dunno, I guess it's just 'not for me'...
 
Yeah, as someone who visited Hudson Yards this summer, it's not something we need any of in Toronto. It's essentially a mall, with some really sterile public landscaping and crappy art. All of the buildings have insanely poor detailing up close with panels of cladding misaligned and trim and joints looking shoddy. The scale of every building is massive and it feels weird compared to the super fine grained blocks of the rest of NYC.

If anything, the topography here is quintessentially Toronto.
 
ProjectEnd said:
I'm curious to know who he expects will pay for the +/- 130m of demo, fill, and road resurfacing required to elevate Strachan to his desired height...
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Who pays for any of our roads? The city is responsible for building the road and sidewalk infrastructure along which private developments are built. The city's responsibility to build roads is an important part of city planning as it gives the city a critical say on where and how private developments will be arranged in the city.

This was a blank slate. There were no buildings here to consider and no stakeholders to satisfy. East Liberty sinks to this intersection, as does Strachan from both sides. If levelled, it would have matched the elevation of Liberty Village itself.

DavidCapizzano said:
If anything, the topography here is quintessentially Toronto.
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Toronto is overwhelmingly flat. This rollercoaster of a road was a man made problem coming out of a lack of planning and foresight and frankly, laziness.
 
MetroMan said:
Toronto is overwhelmingly flat. This rollercoaster of a road was a man made problem coming out of a lack of planning and foresight and frankly, laziness.
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So I live at Dufferin and Eglinton and quite frankly that is nonsense. Just an example of the topography change during my walk from my apartment to work.

Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 1.10.58 PM.png
 
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For reference, using the same Google tool, in this section, an elevation change is not even recorded (even with the not insignificant hill north of Fleet Street). It's just listed as 'mostly flat'.
 
ProjectEnd said:
A visibly secure corporate Elysium which makes no attempt at connecting to the existing Manhattan grid and whose effete gestures at 'arts integration' are eclipsed by endless 'elite' retailing? Not to mention the embarrassing EB-5 debacle or the fact that Stephen Ross himself is a pretty hardcore piece of shit.

I dunno, I guess it's just 'not for me'..
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DavidCapizzano said:
Yeah, as someone who visited Hudson Yards this summer, it's not something we need any of in Toronto. It's essentially a mall, with some really sterile public landscaping and crappy art. All of the buildings have insanely poor detailing up close with panels of cladding misaligned and trim and joints looking shoddy. The scale of every building is massive and it feels weird compared to the super fine grained blocks of the rest of NYC.
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Exactly. In my experience, anyone who has actually *visited* Hudson Yards has essentially this take (including myself). It's closer to Dubai's flawed brand of "urbanism" than it is to the beloved urban elements of NYC (or Toronto, for that matter).

In terms of contemporary large-scale projects/neighbourhood build-outs in Toronto that could offer international best practice notes that one would want other cities to emulate, both Regent Park and even Cityplace have such elements to offer (and to use two pipeline projects that at least seem to have better core notional ingredients and a more healthily urban approach than does Hudson Yards, a dose of Mirvish Village or The Well would have gone a long way in making Hudson Yards less of the mess that it is).

An honest take on Hudson Yards is a good reminder that the urban grass isn't always greener just because it's outside Toronto, just because big-name architects are attached, or just because a shit ton of money went into it.
 
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