Historic Buildings and Sites
London’s Trellick Tower and a Development Debate
LONDON — When Barbara Heksel and her family moved into Trellick Tower in 1981, their friends thought they were crazy. Known for its uncompromising Brutalist design and the crime in its brooding concrete hallways, the London public housing project, built in 1972, had earned the tabloid nickname “Tower of Terror.” But for the Heksels, Trellick […]
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Dimes Square Gets the Hotel It Deserves
“I won’t tell you the molding story, but there’s a lot to the molding,” Andrew Rifkin said, standing inside a room in Nine Orchard, the new hotel on Canal Street between Orchard and Allen Streets. Mr. Rifkin is also proud of the custom ceramic toilet paper holders (“You need a place to put your iPhone […]
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Plotting the Future of the Most Storied Studio in Jazz
The building’s presence on the state and national registers does not protect it from being altered or even demolished by a future owner, Rothschild said. To gain that protection, Sickler has applied for a preservation easement, which would be attached to the property’s deed and involve periodic inspections. It also costs $10,000, and Sickler said […]
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Big Ben’s Bongs Will Soon Ring Out Again Across London
LONDON — For five years, the most famous clock tower in Britain was hidden behind an ugly fortress of scaffolding, and its hourly bong was rendered mute. But the restoration work is done, and this summer, a sound familiar to Londoners for more than a century and a half will again ring out across the […]
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The Wild History of the Real ‘Only Murders’ Building
One Friday evening in early June, Debbie Marx, a Latin teacher and longtime Belnord resident, led a visitor through her unrenovated classic seven, its meandering, book-lined hallways a time capsule from 1959, the year her parents moved in. Her father, Josef Marx, was an oboist and musicologist who had his own music publishing company; her […]
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In Athens Creativity in Art, Food and More Rises
Here’s a surprise: While Athenians were locked down because of the pandemic, a flurry of creative and entrepreneurial activity was underway. The outcome? A total of 272 new restaurants, according to the local industry association, as well as hundreds more cafes and bars. The city also acquired 34 new hotels, offering 1,982 rooms over the […]
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Egypt’s Iconic Nile Houseboats Face Demolition
CAIRO — Rowing up to the cheerful turquoise houseboat on the Nile, a fisherman saluted the white-haired woman swaying on its deck. “How are you holding up?” he called to the woman, Ekhlas Helmy, 88, as his wife dragged back the oars. “May God bring down the bully!” This week may be their last sharing […]
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Documenting India’s Distinctive Birdhouses
Some years ago, while exploring Bhuj, a small city in Gujarat, India’s westernmost state, I stumbled upon a beautiful and initially enigmatic structure: a column that supported an enclosure adorned with hundreds of holes. It seemed to me to be a geometric abstraction of a giant tree — until a pigeon peeped out from one […]
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‘Downton Shabby’: A Commoner Takes on an English Castle
People who search genealogy websites often find birth and marriage records, newspaper clippings, faded photographs or maybe a long-lost relative. Hopwood DePree found a 60-room English manor. As a child growing up in Holland, Mich., in the 1970s, Mr. DePree was transfixed when his beloved maternal grandfather, Pap, a history buff, told him about a […]
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