Even before it was built, plans for the Westyard Distribution Center in Manhattan were heralded, with a December 18, 1966, New York Times headline reading “Project Combats Lure of Suburbs.” The article referred to the 15-story building’s more than 32 acres of rentable space, spanning 220 feet like a bridge over Penn Station’s active rail lines, as “an urban rebuttal to arguments for landscaped suburban warehouses.” Upon completion in 1969, the concrete-clad, ziggurat-like design, by Davis Brody & Associates (now Davis Brody Bond) was generally well received, a rare Brutalist structure to instantly garner praise. At the time, record called it “a confident giant standing astride a broad valley.” The magazine pointed out that “a planned 65/35 percent industrial facilities/ offices ratio was almost directly reversed, as tenants, taken with the building’s appearance, sought to have more of their offices housed in it.”
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