The Shock of the Old

“If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It” might have been a more fitting title for the Skyscraper Museum’s public lecture, “The Future of the Past on Park Avenue: Lever House and the Waldorf Astoria,” held online this Tuesday. In a carousel of then-and-now visuals, I frowned as the ornate plaster ceiling of the Waldorf’s main lobby darkened with the addition of chintzy wall paneling and elegant, free-standing lights devolved into stubby desk lamps. Years of “not so sympathetic” renovations had wiped the Art Deco hotel and the modernist landmark office complex three blocks away clean of their more endearing details, explained architect Frank Mahan, something dual renovations by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill hope to remedy. Mahan was joined on screen by his colleague Amy Garlock, who offered that “everything that’s old will become new in the future.” Wiping away the old-new to reveal the new-old, longtime tenants of the Lever House will be happy to hear that SOM intends on returning shuffleboard courts to the terrace.