The project also amounts to an abandonment of the original vision for Pier 17, which the Rouse Company opened to much fanfare in 1985. Though other high-profile developments along the East River have foundered, most notably Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum and Santiago Calatrava’s apartment tower of stacked cubes, the seaport plan speaks to the undiminished allure of riverfront sites and of developers’ faith that megaprojects can inject new life into, and create profit out of, areas where other visions have failed. Conceding the failure of the South Street Seaport pier as a “festival marketplace” - these days, it is not much more than a waterfront mall - its owners plan to replace it with a mixed-use project including a 42-story, 495-foot apartment and hotel tower, wrapped in a terra-cotta exoskeleton and rising from new pilings in the East River.
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