[Obey]

NYU to Officially Unveil the Greenwich Village 4 Next Week
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/0..._next_week.php

Forget the sketches, concepts and website leaks, NYU is ready to formally unwrap the biggest Greenwich Village components of its NYU 2031 expansion plan. This will happen on March 15, The Villager reports. What we're talking about are the four big new university buildings proposed within the "core" campus around Washington Square Park and NYU's pair of locally-loathed superblocks. We've discussed all four of these in some detail, but like good students, let's review our notes before the exam.

1) This is the as-of-right building that would replace the Morton Williams supermarket just behind Silver Towers on LaGuardia Place, which NYU decided to build once its 40-story hotel/residence hall met with a quick demise. It's shorter than 40 stories, but it's a chubby little guy, so the amount of space is still the same. NYU says work could start in three years, and we're very curious what the final design will look like. Will it be especially ugly to spite those who helped kill the Silver Towers plan?

2) We've seen a lot of this one, dubbed the Zipper Building, which would replace the school's grim Coles Sports Center at Mercer Street and Houston Street. While this gym/athletic facility/dorm/academic building would bring some interesting architecture to the spot (its height ranges from 14 to 17 stories), it's the subject of some heated opposition because of the public strips of land NYU wants and the local dog run that the school wants to move to Silver Towers to make the Zipper happen. According to the Villager, the dog run people are already on the offensive and are threatening to sue NYU.

3) and 4) We just talked about these! The two above-ground buildings (there's also a large underground facility) planned for the middle of Washington Square Village have been dubbed the Boomerang Buildings because of their shape. The massive plan, featuring some downright crazy landscape architecture, was (prematurely?) posted on the Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates website, so there may not be any surprises on the 15th. NYU, preferring to get cracking on the previous two projects, says it won't start this for another 15 years, by which point most of their critics will have died or moved to Florida.