We know as much about architecture as we do about hedge funds, which is to say, slightly less than we know about Aramaic, but certain buildings give us a feeling that maybe we’re not wanted in this city anymore. Take, for example, Blue, the jet-settily-named behemoth condominium going up on the corner of Norfolk and Delancy, about a block from where our grandfather cut glass for less than a dollar a day.
Blue--as in Big Blue or Jet Blue or the neighbor’s late dog Blue--is designed by “internationally-renowned blah blah blah” Bernard Tschumi, dean of the Columbia School of Architecture, known among his brethren as a theorist--i.e. a loser who never gets an architecture job.
Anyway, Tschumi finally got one, and Blue, as of today, has only seven condoms, er condos, left, the most expensive, a two-bedroom-three-bathroom duplex being offered for a very reasonable $3,475,000. Only 46 times what our parents paid for their duplex back in 1976. Oh, but that was across from MOMA.