NY Mag critic Davidson conclusorily calls 461 Dean "decent and affordable," once suggested it would be a watershed

In Will Brooklyn Finally Get a World-Class Skyline?, New York Magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson surveys the landscape, and has some side praise for the B2 modular tower:

Even the lawsuit-afflicted Pacific Park next door to Barclays Center will soon yield some decent and affordable places to live: SHoP Architects’ 461 Dean Street, which sports more attitude than grace. Stacking and bolting together factory-made modules was supposed to make affordable housing cheaper and quicker to put up. Instead, construction snafus and lawsuits among builders turned the process into a nasty slog. Now the tower has defiantly announced its arrival with a façade of fire-engine red.

It's a wee bit conclusory to call it "decent and affordable" without acknowledging lingering clouds over the mold investigation, the limited affordability (and lack of family-sized units), and the cancellation of Forest City Ratner's ambitious plans to build the entire project via modular construction (and winding down of FC Modular).

After all, in an 11/18/11 feature headlined Less Really Is More: SHoP Architects, masters of post-boom buildability., Davidson wrote that "SHoP is staking its name on the world’s tallest prefab tower."

Not so much any more. No more quotes from SHoP founder Gregg Pasquarelli such as “Modular construction could radically change what living in New York is like."

"Factory-made housing has a venerable but erratic pedigree," Davidson wrote at the time. Indeed.