Roosevelt Island - Moscow on the East River?

A visitor to Roosevelt Island shares his thoughts on what he sees here:

Roosevelt Island, NYC is kind if mundane. But the Soviet look of the Philip Johnson apartment slabs (complete with co/op-like businesses occupying the ground levels) make the Island feel more like **Miskolc, Hungary than New York. And that's actually a good foil in the center of the most Commercialized of cities.

and here:

If you squint, you can see the danglingondola of death is as packed as it was when I rode it minutes earlier.

I do have the impression that Roosevelt Island often evokes images of the old Soviet Union or being behind the Iron Curtain, particularly the Main Street area in the middle of Roosevelt Island. But remember, Italy loves Roosevelt Island.