The latest port of call for hotelier Vikram Chatwal can be found at 346 West 17th Street in the Meatpacking District, where the new ship of hospitality will dock up against the Maritime Hotel. This one is the Dream Downtown Hotel, and architect Frank Fusaro along with the gang from Handel Architects are giving the original Albert Ledner-designed structure a re-vamp, which might be a good move considering the last transient tenants to occupy the building were a bit outside the demo.
The sloping facade above 17th Street is getting a new skin made of what looks to be shiny metal, punched through with portholes in two sizes (big and bigger). Where the slope of the Dream meets the wall it shares with the Maritime, the portholes are placed more randomly, like a bunch of airy bubbles rising to the sky. They're a humorous contrast to the ever-so-straight column of mini-portholes lined up on the Maritime's narrow north face. The porthole casings are being manufactured under the guidance of Gavin Associates, a firm out of Massachusetts. The super-rad rendering of the dreamy facade is from the always creative crew at Spine 3-D. Given the fate of his building across town, we think Mr. Ledner would approve.
