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Can Renzo Piano's New York Times building be as good as the old quarters? A longtime staffer doubts it.
I already miss the old New York Times building on West 43rd Street. It may be four years before Renzo Piano's architectural wonder, the new world headquarters for the Times, is built, but I'm already nostalgic for the place where I have worked for the past 28 years, and where I thought I'd work forjust as many more. Most of my colleagues eagerly anticipate moving around the corner to 4oth and 8th, but not me. I prefer the small Times lobby with its sweeping marble staircase, Deco-styled appointments, and curtained windows above the revolving door to Piano's proposed commercial atrium-the so-called democratic spacethat will doubtless be less intimate and remind me less of Loretta Young.
This old Times building is my second home. The prospect ofa larger, more beautiful, more public building that will accommodate other tenants does not fill me with delight. I like things as they are: worn, venerable, and comfortable. To confirm these prejudices, I stopped by the new Conde Nast building across the street, which is clean, cold, and corporate. It may be fine for a mega-publishing conglomerate, but for not my hometown paper.
The Times is not a faceless enterprise, and our edifice is not a monument to corporate power. In the long-awaited 42nd Street Redevelopment tower-play, the existingTimes building, which looks like a Loire Valley chateau, is, admittedly, an anachronism. But as Times Square becomes the electronic media park of the world-the site of...