Rough Elegance in DUMBO
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
“The joy of living in DUMBO,” is a phrase that only a developer could have invented. In fact, it is the inspired coinage of the Hudson Companies Incorporated, in application to the nearly completed JCondo, at 100 Jay St. in Brooklyn.
Is it indeed a joy to live in DUMBO? That depends upon your worldview. There is a rumor abroad that the denizens of Brooklyn think themselves cooler than the inhabitants of Manhattan, upon whom they look with a mixture of pity and contempt. To live in Manhattan is, by their lights, to have sold out. To live in Manhattan is to be a bond trader by association, or anything else that could possibly be more compromised and inauthentic. But to live in Brooklyn is to be an artist by association, and to live in DUMBO is to be an artist tout court.
The name DUMBO is a somewhat strained label that stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” that massive chunk of infrastructure that dominates and overshadows the entire area. The development of DUMBO over the past 10 years is a familiar one, almost formulaic in its unfolding. Into this burnt-out husk of a former industrial zone came the artists, drawn to the dirt-cheap rents. Half a decade later came the cutting-edge confectioners (Jacques Torres to be precise), followed several years after by the developers and now the middle class.
In its present stage of evolution, DUMBO exists in a state of equilibrium between Bohemian edginess and middle class parents, with their strollers and attaché cases, who are drawn to the area because it is more affordable than Manhattan and because it has a reputation for being artistic. In the fullness of time, the artists will be driven out, if that is not happening already, and yet one more bohemian enclave, like Soho and Chelsea before it, will have sold its all too venal soul.
For the time being though, the place does have some genuine claims to cultural consequence. Each October sees the “d.u.m.b.o. art under the bridge festival,” for example, when the doors of all the galleries are flung open and the artists take to the streets. There are Dada-inspired street theater, musicians, and dance festivals. It is noteworthy as well that this part of Brooklyn may represent the first time that avantgarde art, if the label still applies, has two vital centers in New York City, here and Chelsea.
From an architectural perspective, DUMBO is an ideal setting for those who admire colossal infrastructure. Not only is the area dominated by the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, but its building stock is almost entirely the sort of six-story red-brick that once housed its manufacturing outlets. One would require more skill in sociology than I possess to determine what exactly constitutes the appeal of such places to the many people who seek them out. But I suspect it has to do with the emphatic rejection of suburbia, with all its bland and safe associations, through the quest for some essentially urban landscape. Then there is the embrace of a more picturesquely abject existence than can be had, say, amid the flowerbeds of the Upper East Side. Finally, the broad-shouldered proletarian mood of the place and the aesthetic of its architecture suggest an authenticity that is apparently sought after by many who come from anything but a proletarian background.
Two new projects nearing completion in DUMBO, the Beacon at 85 Adams St. and JCondo at 100 Jay St., are clad mainly in red brick and demonstrate a contextual respect for the turn-of-the-century architecture that surrounds them. At the same time, however, they fundamentally alter the scale of the place, especially the latter building, which stands 31 stories tall. Designed by Gruzen Samton Architects, its façade alternates irregularly between brick facing and curtain walls that protrude from its curving façade in three zones.
Just at the other side of the overpass, scarcely a stone’s throw away, is the somewhat more conventionally shaped Beacon Tower at 85 Adams St. Designed by the firm of Cetra/Ruddy, this sleek building rises up 23 stories, and its tripartite façade alternates between zones of brick and metal facing. It is crowned by a metallic filigree that draws attention to the mechanical hardware of the building. That act of exposure, presumably, chimes with the gritty honesty and integrity that are supposed to be the hallmarks of DUMBO. It also plays into the infrastructural aesthetic so flamboyantly on display throughout the area. But in its unassuming way, this is also a rather elegant building. Strictly rectilinear, it has an intuitive trust in geometry that has resulted in a distinguished and harmonious façade.