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Robert A.M. Stern talks “poor doors” and de Blasio
The starchitect offers some housing advice to the mayor
Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, has designed some of the most exclusive buildings in – or coming to – New York City. Having designed 15 Central Park West, as well as a trio of super tall towers – 520 Park Avenue, 30 Park Place and 220 Central Park South – the 75-year-old architect gave the New York Post his two cents on class divides, “poor doors” and housing policy.
Asked what he thought of the loss of mixed-income building and the “current mutation to a rich door/poor dynamic,” Stern said, “It’s one of the most complicated problems we have to solve.”
Pressed on his opinion of the notorious “poor door,” Stern shrugged. “If they have a nice apartment and they can afford it and it is a safe building that’s well managed, they don’t have to enter the same lobby. I have no problem if they come in the same lobby with me either.”
As for Mayor Bill de Blasio, Stern remains suspicious:
“I think the mayor is a very well-intentioned man in many respects. Sometimes, I think his intentions are naively realized. […] We have these housing projects all over the city which were the best in the world when they were built in the 1930s to the ’50s, but they did isolate low-income people away from the city and certainly away from people of other income groups. […] I’m very suspicious of the efficacy of these ideas.” [NYP] – Christopher Cameron