Pritzker Award-winning architect Renzo Piano told the NY Times he was "totally in agreement" about the New York Times' decision to remove ceramic rods from the building's exteriors. The rods acted as rungs for three climbers to scale the building's exterior; Piano said, "I’m frankly quite worried about this new fashion of going up on buildings. This is what I call an inappropriate use of the building.” He added that the building was "built to......

Photograph, above, of the New York Times Building--as designed by Renzo Piano--by WallyG on Flickr; below, photograph of workers removing the rods by David Dunlap/NY Times After a third person managed to scale up its ladder-like exterior, workers went to work removing a number of the horizontal "rungs" gracing the New York Times Building. The NY Times dutifully reports this decision "represented a reversal for The Times, which had insisted that it would not......

Photographs by nedward on Flickr Earlier this morning, a man was arrested after climbing on the New York Times Building's exterior, making him the third person to do so in six weeks. The man, 29-year-old David Malone, hung a banner over the banner to help promote his book about Osama Bin Laden; while he started up the building at 1:30 a.m., he wasn't apprehended until 5:20 a.m. Malone had called the Daily News, explaining......

So much for the security modifications outside: Over night, a third person scaled the exterior of the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue at 41st Street in Midtown Manhattan. The first reports of his presence were around 1:30 a.m., and the NY Times reports, "after staying on the building for about four hours, the man surrendered to police officers and was arrested around 5:20 a.m."...

Photograph, top, of Alain Robert by Carol Quillen; photograph, below, of Renaldo Clarke by Michael Chan A lawyer for the "French Spiderman" who scaled the New York Times building last week believes his client should be honored, not reprimanded by the city. Alain Robert, who used the 52-story climb to draw attention to global warming (he unveiled a banner reading "Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week"), appeared in court and faces......

Photograph, top, of Alain Robert climbing the Times building by Carol Quillen; photograph, below, of Renaldo Clarke climbing by Michael Chan After two incidents of X-treme attention whoring Thursday afternoon, cops were stationed around the perimeter of the New York Times building on 41st St. Friday, successfully preventing anyone else from taking a shot at scaling the side of the new skyscraper. Famous urban climber Alain Robert drew quite a crowd as he climbed......

How does someone find out that his son is the second person climbing the New York Times Building in one day? Apparently when the Daily News calls. Renaldo Clarke Sr., a retired Con Ed worker, had been watching the footage of the guy scaling the side of the new Eighth Avenue skyscraper but didn't realize it was his son until the tabloid informed him. From the News: Told the climber was his son, Clarke,......

The Post and Daily News gleefully put the old Gray Lady on their covers with the same headline--"The New York Climbs"--in the Times' headline font. The NY Times tucks mention of the pair of unrelated climbers, Alain Robert and Ray Clark, who scaled its building to the bottom of the front page. A year ago, the Post and Daily News didn't use the same headlines, but they did use the same cover and back......

Photographs of the second climber by wubbahed on Flickr Currently, there's another climber scaling the side of the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue at 41st Street, and as one commenter said earlier, "Wait a minute, they put up a building that looks like a giant ladder, and somebody climbed it? Shocker." He/She is somewhere between the 20th and 30th floors. Earlier today, Alain Robert scaled the building (here's a photo gallery) to......

Earlier today thrillseeker/activist Alain Robert scaled the NY Times Building in order to draw attention to the Global Warming threat. He reportedly climbed 52 floors, to the roof, before being detained by police around 12:30 p.m. He did so without the aid of any climbing instruments (except his shoes) and sans the safety of a parachute strapped to his back. On his website, the URL of which adorned his t-shirt, he stated:Today is World Environment......

LECTURE SERIES: The Nation forges on with their series of Tuesday evening lectures tonight. Nation columnist and Columbia Law professor Patricia J. Williams will be on hand to discuss her montly "Diary of a Mad Law Professor" column. Expect to examine the law in whole new light. 6pm // Library of the General Society [20 W 44th St] // $15 MUSIC: Peasant, who played our Gothamist House during CMJ, is back in New York and......

Yesterday's gusting winds caused quite a bit of damage besides providing more winter chill. Building scaffolding was knocked over in many places, a tree pinned a man in NJ to the ground, and windows and/or debris fell from two Manhattan skyscrapers, hitting pedestrians. Winds were reported to be at least 40MPH, with gusts at 50MPH, yesterday (wind advisory was in effect until this morning at 4AM). The Buildings Department had asked property owners and construction......

The Real Deal (via Brownstoner) is reporting that, according to a recent court ruling, the city is taking two Williamsburg properties via eminent domain for Bushwick Inlet Park. The properties are located along the East River between North 9th and 10th streets. According to one real estate expert, the city will only pay about $100 per square foot, compared to the $200 per square foot it could garner on the open market, even though the......

The NY Sun takes a look at the impact of graphic design firm Pentagram on the city’s arts institutions. The article focuses mostly on partner Paula Scher, who has created identities for the Public Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, the High Line, the Asia Society and a host of others. Scher, who designed the original “Boston” album in 1976, is now designing for the Park Avenue Armory and Drill Hall,......

Designer Michael Bierut has details over at the Pentagram blog on how he and his team created the recently installed sign at The New York Times Building, the 52-story tower designed by Renzo Piano and FXFowle. At 110 feet, the sign, located on the building's Eighth Ave. facade, is a 10,116-point version of the paper’s Fraktur font. It is comprised of 1,000 custom-designed pieces, each a painted extruded aluminum sleeve a little more than......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Madison St. in Manhattan, a homicide on Wyckoff Ave and Himrod St. in Brooklyn, and an overturned auto on Hone and Mace Aves. in the Bronx. A trio of yeshiva students and their teacher were rescued from a 200-foot-high ledge by rapelling park police yesterday, after straying from a trail at Bear Mtn. State Park. The news of a crash that persists in Chinatown, as the......

"Across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal" is becoming the new benchmark in swank office location. Crain's reports that the New York Times Building (pictured right) designed by Renzo Piano and FxFowle has "breathed new life into the formerly moribund area" across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The proof? Sky-high rents from high-end corporate tenants. While Class A office space in the formerly "tawdry" district rented for about $30 per square foot in......

Apparently, you're not the only one who while reading the New York Times magazine every week thinks, This crazy profile would make one helluva movie. Our paper of record announced late yesterday that they've struck an exclusive deal with the Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann Agency in Los Angeles to broker the options from NYT content. While it's not unusual for publications and journalists to sell the rights for their non-fiction articles to be turned......