I agree that this building is not an appropriate addition to the city. I'm not sure lighting up the panels would help at all.

It should be retrofitted, with ground level glass-walled retail and office space, and perhaps housing above, if not demolished. Other cities have had great success retrofitting their anti-urban, 1970s buildings and we can too.

Until that can be done, the attractiveness of this walk can be improved by 1) widening the sidewalks, 2) improving street and sidewalk maintenance, 3) installing street trees and landscape buffers, 4) reducing speeds on the street, 5) pedestrian scale lighting.

Just to show what a horror this building is...

On a historical note. Allegedly this building was the first commercial condominium in Connecticut. The STD clinic was located in this same building - a lot of people I knew received their death sentences, aka AIDS diagnosis, in this hole - can you imagine? The courtyard used to be kind of okay - the architect turned the building inside out, probably as a reaction to the surrounding area.

Removing a lane of traffic, on either side of this building would help a lot. Replacing the dark panels with something that would indicate what is going on inside the building would help too.

Dream on. It's private property and they don't have to do a thing.

They may not "have to do a thing", but they might want to improve the appearance of their property - I think it's called being neighborly or some kind of archaic idea like caring....

There are all kinds of laws and ordinances governing what one can or cannot do with private property.

I recommend grafity, then it would blend in with everything else

This building is the visual equivalent of rap music, death metal, etc. It's a celebration of ugliness, negativity and a slap in the face of beauty and an indication of where we're at as a culture - in the toilet.

it really has always felt like i was walking past a concrete bunker. i just think that despite that crazy idea of 'love thy neighbor' that we might hope for, the knights might just prefer to be as closed off from the city as possible.

it'd be a nice surprise if they considered how much a part they play in a cold, harsh, unwelcoming introduction to the city or lack of connection to the community.

Love the photo of the post-nuclear holocaust downtown - the only thing left - the roaches and that building...

I'm wondering if any brutalist building has had a successful "happy" makeover? What would it look like? Maybe some sort of camouflage paint job, like this:
http://tiny.cc/cfa6z

or this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage

This building is a total failure of architecture and city planning. Are people really expected to walk on that 2' wide sidewalk, while avoiding the overabundant signs and the speeding traffic inches away?

perhaps this can be incorporated into Andy Ross's mural project on the nearby Comcast building?

That building is an affront to civilization. Short of demolishing that eyesore, maybe some colored LED lighting might help?

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