TROPOLISM

After about a decade of design competitions, developer attention, and all sorts of community wrangling, Pier 40 is the site that just won't quit. It's understandable; we ourselves designed for the first competition way back in '98 or whenever, and the parking-garage-on-the-water is too good to pass up. Pictured is the most interesting proposal, by Arquitectonica.

Curbed has some exclusive advance renderings of some new proposals, scheduled to be exhibited. None of them strike us as particularly appealing, at least from the renderings they chose to release. Most of the designs give the USPS building across the West Side Highway--the long building that spans the street approaches to Pier 40 and effectively cuts the view of it--the right to live. They then compound the obstacle by creating plinth-parks, which haven't worked since they were invented. If you're going to go hella crazy, just propose new buildings for the entire area and run with it.