It isn’t warm. It isn’t fuzzy. From its extraterrestrial presence on the Bronx skyline to its security-state name, PSAC II is not in the least bit neighborly.
Yet it may save your life someday…
In recent years, motorists saw the structure clad with silver- and charcoal-colored aluminum panels. These were set in a saw-tooth pattern that makes the enormous cube blend gauzily with the sky or stand out like an impenetrably dark mesa.
Then they saw it encircled by a gently sloping earthen berm that offers extra protection.
“It has the effect of making this big box appear to float,” said Gary Haney, a partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of PSAC II. The berm also makes it appear, when seen from within, as if the center were surrounded by nature, not barriers.