Northside Piers: Red Brick & Glass

We will admit that we've been a little fixated on Northside Piers, as it is the first highrise to go up on the North Brooklyn waterfront north of the Williamsburg Bridge and south of Newtown Creek. We're also drawn to it because we think it's superbly ugly, making the buildings that have gone up in Long Island City, for instance, look like high art. In about ten years of course, so many buildings will have been constructed--barring a real estate crash--that Northside will hardly draw a second look, except that by then, it will probably start showing its age. For now, it's the first. This is a view from this week across the open expanse of what will be yet another development site.