I’m not claiming prophet status or anything (I think the rule for that is life plus 70 years. Or is it ten years dead? I dunno.), but it’s so nice to see someone else independently arrive at an idea and make it real. The Battery Maritime Building is one-of-a-kind. It’s old New York. When you walk through lower Manhattan, judging the buildings with a critical eye—sierras and forests composed of nothing but glass, granite, and concrete—and then see the Battery Maritime Building, you get a little charge in your spine. Or at least I do. It looks even better contrast with the barf-inducing Staten Island Ferry terminal (officially the “Whitehall Ferry Terminal,” I believe) nearby, at least before the terminal’s renovation. So I’ve always thought that the Battery Maritime Building needed to be renovated, turned into a gallery of non-chain food joints, art shops, coffee lounges, and the like. And, voilà, my wish is granted.
I swear, if I had had a billion dollars in 1993-94, the housing boom and the renovation of New York City would have happened 10 years earlier.