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Today's Urban Design Observation: Neat Sidewalk Feature on Crosby Street

By Rain Noe - December 12, 2017

in Urbanism

There's a lot of unassuming buildings on Crosby Street in SoHo, but I know this one in particular because a certain famous rock star lived there, and a training brother of mine works in carpentry and got hired for a job there, and one of his crew members accidentally fucked up this rock star's window treatment and had to race to fix it before the rock star returned.

Anyways, there's a nifty feature on the sidewalk in front of this building. You can't really appreciate it during the day, but at dawn, dusk and at night, you see these:

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Admittedly they serve no real purpose, unless you live in the building and are trying to guide a friend there who cannot read building addresses, but I think they're a nice little touch. Hats off to the architect.

o

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Jeff Bianco

6 years ago

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It appears they serve the purpose of lighting up the building entry.

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Jonathan Tenkely

6 years ago

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If you're walking with your face buried in your phone, it's a nice visual indicator that there's something significant (cross-traffic from doors) that you may need to divert your attention toward.

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Rob Bunker

6 years ago

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I'm a surveyor who regularly sets up my equipment next to these lights. They're a nice detail, but I've stared straight into them one too many times while trying to get an instrument height!

It's a cool area of the city, thanks for the local history lesson!

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