Prismatic Schmatic. After the NYPD criticized the security measures at One World Trade back in 2005, David Childs responded by losing the glass on the bottom 20 floors and creating a bunker like base to be hidden behind prismatic glass panels and welded aluminum screens. Now the Times reports that plan has to be scrapped because the Chinese manufacturer can’t prevent the prismatic panes from bowing. Childs is back at the drawing board.

Green Empire. Sustainable Cities says that LinkedIn signed a 31,000 square foot lease at the Empire State Building because it’s too green to pass up. The building is undergoing a $550 million makeover and shooting for LEED Gold. Via Planitzen.

Say It Ain’t So! Gothamist reports that Coney Island is going concrete, or at least part of the famed boardwalk is. The community board has decided to allow a 12-foot wide concrete path for vehicular traffic to run straight down the middle of the famed wooden way.

Critic Shortage. The LA Times’ Christopher Hawthorne took to the pages of Architectural Record bemoaning the damage “internet culture” has done to criticism. He takes aim at bloggers in particular, though he allows that Geoff Manaugh‘s BLDGBLOG is a stand out. But for every BLDGBLOG there are ten whose work is “overlong, prone to self-absorption, and still struggling to get a handle on the it’s/its dilemma — appears to exist only to prove the old adage that it’s the editor who makes the writer.” Via Archnews.