Harley Baldwin dead at 59.

Harley Baldwin, the visionary behind Bridgemarket, died on January 23 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of kidney cancer. He was 59.

Baldwin was also instrumental in defining Aspen, Colo. as a mecca for skiers and socialites.

In the mid-1970's to the mid-80's, Baldwin had a dream to recreate a global food market called Bridgemarket under the Queensboro Bridge bounded by 52nd Street and 66th Street, Park Avenue and the waterfront. In the early 1900s, farmers brought their goods in horse drawn carriages to the same area. But his dream had to be put on hold with a myriad of problems cropping up including funding, community opposition, disagreements on the scope of the plan and finally the downturn of the real estate market in the early 1990s.

"I met Harley in the 1980s when the development was just starting out," said Pamela Loeffelman, who was then with Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates and is now a principal at Perkins Eastman Architects.

"He and Sheldon Gordon were the early visionaries in conceiving of what Bridgemarket could be," she said. "I think what happened was the real estate market changed and by the late 90s discussions about a food market were again possible."

The market finally opened in 2000 after many recreations and includes an adaptive reuse and restoration of the space beneath the Queensboro Bridge, a 900-seat restaurant, high-end housewares and furniture store, supermarket and a public plaza with garden.

In 2003, the project won the Rudy Bruner Silver Medal Award for Urban Excellence.