NEW YORK | 980 Madison Av. | HEIGHT | 30 FLOORS | 2006 | NEVER BUILT

[skylife]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Weirdo. Wow, did you think of that one yourself?...

Heh? If you can't see how London has kept vital by embracing its past and the future, as New York should (and as Paris and Hong Kong haven't), then I'm guessing you just have a chip on your shoulder about London because it's cooler than NY...even though you live in New Jersey LOL. Not that Paris and HK aren't vital, but London's model is a better way to go for NY - an emphasis on historic preservation but not at the expense of modernity. I don't understand why you're so tweenie girl about it or on what level you disagree.

[LostInTheZone]

wow, way to read what I said. My post was about how much I like the view of the Carlyle Hotel from the park, and I was wondering how this building would fit into on the east side skyline. I wasn't talking about Central Park West, or the ESB. I am AWARE that towers are visible from most of the park. I was wondering how this particular tower would look, from the park. Next time I just won't ask. I'll just go on NY Times articles, and your insightful commentary, and use my imagination.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by LostInTheZone

Next time I just won't ask. I'll just go on NY Times articles, and your insightful commentary, and use my imagination.

Thanks.

[NYguy]

NY Sun

Drama Resumes on East Side Over Aby Rosen's Proposal

By DAVID LOMBINO
January 15, 2007


The drama surrounding a developer's proposal to build a 22-story elliptical glass tower on top of the limestone Parke-Bernet Gallery building on Madison Avenue between East 76th and East 77th streets will resume tomorrow in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

In a telephone interview yesterday, the developer, Aby Rosen, said he is willing to modify the design of the proposed apartment building, including the use of more masonry and changing the color of the building to "champagne" from silver. He said the changes would make the proposed modern addition harmonize better with its base, a five-story building built in 1949.

"There will be changes," Mr. Rosen said. "We want to hear feedback from the commissioners and come back with something that is more in line with their views."

Tomorrow, the Landmarks Commission can vote to reject the proposal, propose modifications, or approve it outright. Mr. Rosen and his architect, Lord Norman Foster, will present the original designs and answer questions from the Landmarks commissioners. Mr. Rosen said he prefers a postponement and the chance to work collaboratively with the commissioners. Preservation groups and some neighbors are seeking immediate, decisive rejection.

Since renderings were first revealed in early October, the project has been the talk of the neighborhood. Proponents say the sleek modern design would enliven the neighborhood, while critics say it is out of character with the rest of the Upper East Side Historic District. More than 200 people crammed into a Landmarks public hearing last fall, and the commission has received more than 600 letters and e-mails concerning the project, some in favor, some against.

In the interview, Mr. Rosen said the Landmarks Commission should allow developers to expand buildings in historic districts, enabling the city to blend the new with the old.

"If we freeze all those and don't find a way to add vertically, we will be living in a medieval town in 50 or a hundred years," Mr. Rosen said. "We need to find a way to grow."

His project has received strong support from several prominent members of the neighborhood's cultural elite, including financier Ronald Perelman, art dealer Larry Gagosian, and artist Jeff Koons, who say the building would spark the neighborhood's fading reputation as a creative force. They back Mr. Rosen's argument that an "iconic" modernist building and the addition of public art space breath fresh air into the artistic community. Last fall, the Whitney Museum announced it would seek to expand Downtown and abandon decade-old plans to add to its existing space on Madison Avenue.

"The galleries are fleeing, the restaurants are not there. Every street has no life. By 7 o'clock it's dead there," Mr. Rosen said. "Now the Whitney is going Downtown, it is even more important to have this."

The proposed tower, across the street from the Carlyle Hotel between 76th and 77th Streets, would contain about 18 full-floor units and duplexes spread on a total of 22 floors. In addition, Mr. Rosen has proposed to restore the Parke-Bernet gallery to its original condition, and add 45,000 square feet of public gallery space and roof garden, spaces, he notes, that are comparable to the size of the Whitney Museum's gallery space.

Mr. Foster's designs include the "Gherkin" building in London and the new Hearst Tower on Eighth Avenue in Midtown. To go ahead, the addition to the building at 980 Madison Avenue would have to receive approval by the Landmarks Commission and then pass muster with the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

The Community Board that represents the neighborhood rejected the proposal in an advisory vote in October by a margin of 20 to 13. At a contentious board meeting, one area resident, Daniel Goldberg, called the tower "a glass dagger plunged into the heart of the Upper East Side."

The executive director of the Historic Districts Council, Simeon Bankoff, said the commission's decision is crucial for the future of the city's more than 80 historic districts. "This will do irreparable damage to the streetscape of Madison Avenue, all for the benefit of the developer and the 18 families who get to live there," Mr. Bankoff said. "They are attempt to bend the law to create a palace for plutocrats."

If Mr. Rosen's project is approved, he said a precedent would be set that would severely threaten the power of the commission in rejecting rooftop additions.

"If this is allowed, it opens up the door to see every building as a platform for a tower thrusting out of it," Mr. Bankoff said.

The New-York Historical Society, he noted, is "already revving up their campaign" for a similar tower addition to its building on Central Park West.

Two years ago, Mr. Rosen, the president of RFR Holding LLC, bought the Parke-Bernet Gallery, the former home of Sotheby's, for about $120 million. Mr. Rosen has said the total cost of adding the tower would be about $180 million, and he doesn't expect to begin construction until 2008 or 2009. Mr. Rosen considers himself a preservationist, and has received accolades for his restoration of two landmarked Park Avenue office buildings, the Lever House and the Seagram Building. The high-pitched landmarks battle prompted writer and preservationist Tom Wolfe to pen a 3,496-word op-ed in the New York Times, "The (Naked) City and the Undead," slamming the Landmark's Commission and mocking Mr. Rosen and his plans. That essay prompted a cover story this week in the Village Voice, "Has Tom Wolfe Blown it?" suggesting the author's op-ed was an attempt at self-promotion.

Mr. Rosen called Mr. Wolfe's oped "insulting " and the act of someone who was trying to revive a dying career.

"This is a man who has lost a little of his luster," Mr. Rosen said. "White suits alone won't keep in you in the limelight."

The Landmarks Commission will hear Mr. Rosen's case tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. at the Surrogate's Courthouse near City Hall.

[NYguy]

The executive director of the Historic Districts Council, Simeon Bankoff, said the commission's decision is crucial for the future of the city's more than 80 historic districts. "This will do irreparable damage to the streetscape of Madison Avenue, all for the benefit of the developer and the 18 families who get to live there," Mr. Bankoff said. "They are attempt to bend the law to create a palace for plutocrats."

If Mr. Rosen's project is approved, he said a precedent would be set that would severely threaten the power of the commission in rejecting rooftop additions. "If this is allowed, it opens up the door to see every building as a platform for a tower thrusting out of it," Mr. Bankoff said.

The New-York Historical Society, he noted, is "already revving up their campaign" for a similar tower addition to its building on Central Park West.

Great. Let the history buffs go head to head in battle. May the most historical win.

[NYC2ATX]

Originally Posted by NYguy

[b][size=4]
In a telephone interview yesterday, the developer, Aby Rosen, said he is willing to modify the design of the proposed apartment building, including the use of more masonry and changing the color of the building to "champagne" from silver. He said the changes would make the proposed modern addition harmonize better with its base, a five-story building built in 1949.

Greeaaatt. (sarcasm) I don't see how these changes will improve the design. How will they be able to inlcude "masonry" without making this modernist design look silly.

Originally Posted by NYguy

Preservation groups and some neighbors are seeking immediate, decisive rejection.

These people are real assholes.

Originally Posted by NYguy

In the interview, Mr. Rosen said the Landmarks Commission should allow developers to expand buildings in historic districts, enabling the city to blend the new with the old.

"If we freeze all those and don't find a way to add vertically, we will be living in a medieval town in 50 or a hundred years," Mr. Rosen said. "We need to find a way to grow."

This is true.

Originally Posted by NYguy

"The galleries are fleeing, the restaurants are not there. Every street has no life. By 7 o'clock it's dead there," Mr. Rosen said. "Now the Whitney is going Downtown, it is even more important to have this."

Of course this doesn't matter to the NIMBYs.

Originally Posted by NYguy

One area resident, Daniel Goldberg, called the tower "a glass dagger plunged into the heart of the Upper East Side."

Give me a break!

[Scruffy]

Everyone is fighting this week. calm down. smoke a bowl.

LITZ- The carlyle apartments can be seen primarily from the rambles, bow bridge, the lake, fountain.. that general area and you mostly just see the top third and its trademark roof. this tower will be across the street from it but in between the park and the carlyle. Since its only 350ft or so you will still be able to see the trademake carlyle roof that hits 426 feet. Personally i think it will be a good look. It will be horrendous if he changes the color to champagne. good god no.

to the NIMBYs that claim, this tower will kill the park.. get a life. are you serious? You can barely see the carlyle from the park. you see just the top sprouting over the trees. You see Trump condos better. But god forbid a glass tower will be seen from that section of the park your day will be ruined? 17 blocks south and across the park you have not one but 2 glassy behemoths in the time warner center. i understand their need to protest but to come up with "save the park" is pitiful and it shows that they really dont have an argument to stand on.

So this could go two ways, it could end up harmoniously like the Hearst tower and its base, or the odd man out like Astor Place tower. For those non NYCers, they built a 22 story blue reflective glass upscale condo in the middle of Astor Place in the east village. while the site did lend itself to a highrise, the tower does not mesh with the masonry and brick that surrounds it. Its a good looking tower in its own right, just not right there. I don't have the photoshop skills to see if this tower fits in its location. But i'll send along some pics i took of the carlyle from from central park so that everyone can judge for themselves.

[LostInTheZone]

thanks scruffy. I agree with you RE the astor place building- i can never quite put my finger on what bothers me about that building, because I feel that it should work, but really doesn't. I think it might have to do more with the fact that the glass they used is too wavy and it makes the building look cheap.

And yes, champagne glass would look terrible.

[Jularc]

Landmarks Commission Parks Parke-Bernet Plan
They like it the way it is.


By Felix Gillette | January 16, 2007

Tuesday morning, in a major victory for the city's historic preservationists, the members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission more or less shot down developer Aby Rosen's plans for the redevelopment of the Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue. Although the commission did not officially kill the project today, it became clear throughout the course of the hearing that without huge modifications, the proposal as it currently stands has little hope of ever getting built.

Along the way, various commissioners praised Rosen's plans, which would restore the five-story building to its original 1949 design and add on top of the exiting structure a nuzzling pair of glass towers, reaching some thirty stories into the sky. That said, all but one commissioner noted that they could not support the current proposal due to problems with its scale, massing, materials, and location.

Commissioner Joan Gerner called the proposed structure "an architectural masterpiece." Albeit, one that had failed to win her support. "My issue is with the location," said Gerner. "This building belongs on a vacant site."

In other words, not on top of an existing building. And not in the midst of the Upper East Side Historic District.

Other commission members said that despite his best effort, renowned British architect Norman Foster had failed thus far to come up with an architectural scheme that would properly harmonize the proposed glass towers with the existing limestone-clad base.

"I'm an authority on marriages," said Commissioner (and practicing minister) Thomas Pike. "And this marriage makes me nervous."

A few minutes later, Commissioner Margery Perlmutter suggested that the project might be appropriate in some Blade-Runner-like version of the future, when every vacant inch of the city has been filled. But for the time being, she too gave the proposal a thumbs-down.

Not surprisingly, the proceedings were well attended. Ever since news of the proposal first became public this past fall, the project has been dividing neighbors throughout the Upper East Side. Today, a large crowd of supports and detractors packed into the hearing.


@Thevillagevoice.com

[NYguy]

the members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission more or less shot down developer Aby Rosen's plans for the redevelopment of the Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue. Although the commission did not officially kill the project today, it became clear throughout the course of the hearing that without huge modifications, the proposal as it currently stands has little hope of ever getting built............. all but one commissioner noted that they could not support the current proposal due to problems with its scale, massing, materials, and location.

That's too bad. Rosen should just drop it, look to build that tower elsewhere, because cleary it would have ruined the upper East Side skyline




_
http://thecityreview.com/mad980pp.html

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYguy

_
http://thecityreview.com/mad980pp.html

Let's show this wealthy developer that you can't buy New York! Power to the people!....

(Washington Post)

Old Money and New Construction
In New York, a Proposed Condo Tower Pits the Rich and Famous Against the Rich and Famous



On New York's Upper East Side, a developer wants to restore the Parke-Bernet Galleries building and add a 22-story glass tower -- a project that has generated discord among the community's moneyed residents. (Photos By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)


By Michael Powell and Robin Shulman
Tuesday, January 16, 2007


NEW YORK -- To the ramparts, my friends!

An haute New York developer has proposed to erect a 22-story condominium tower atop the austere and officially landmarked walls of the Parke-Bernet Galleries building on the Upper East Side. And the burghers of this oldest of old-money neighborhoods are as revolutionaries to the barricades.

It's one of those marvelous New York moments when outrage trumps self-awareness, laying bare egos and ids more often artfully concealed from public view.

"If this tower is completed," complained Alexandra Donati, who lives in a Park Avenue cooperative where the net worth of members is counted in tens of millions of dollars, "it will mean that power for profit can overwhelm long-term conservation goals."

Then there is the aggrieved cry of Nicholas J. Sands, who happens to live across the street from the proposed tower. Like Donati, he has written to the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, which could vote today to approve or reject the Madison Avenue project.

"Is there anything sacred left in New York?" he asked. "As the owner of a full floor condominium and private art gallery residence . . . which directly overlooks the building in full scale picturesque view, I would like to express my opposition."

One preservationist reported nearly passing out when word broke of the proposed tower atop the five-story art gallery, while novelist Tom Wolfe penned an exclamatory jeremiad against the project on the op-ed pages of the New York Times.

"It would be hard to dream up anything short of a Mobil station more out of place there than a Mondo Condo glass box," wrote Wolfe, who then executed a rhetorical pirouette and lanced the Landmarks Preservation Commission as "a bureau of the walking dead."

High on the opposing ridge, we find developer Aby Rosen, who calls himself a modernist and fancies himself a patron of the arts, and Lord Norman Foster, a properly British architect. They have recruited high-society worthies to their banner: perfume magnate Ron Perelman, heiress Veronica Hearst, celebrity editor Anna Wintour of Vogue (whose signature is three inches high and eight inches wide), a celebrity dermatologist and a few famous artists, not the least of whom is Jeff Koons. (Koons is not without a moneyed horse in this race, as Rosen a few years ago paid a record sum to purchase one of his artworks.)

Rosen and Foster cast themselves as aesthetic adherents of the progressive and the radical. Absent their glass-and-steel tower, they warn, young hedge-funders will shun this shtetl of prewar brick apartment buildings, where three-bedroom apartments retail at $5 million, give or take a million.

"You need to revitalize the area in order to give the younger generation who are seeking modern life and want to go away from classic building prewar," Rosen explained. The young titans yearn to "stay uptown close to private schools. You can't shut them out."

Lord Foster, who called in on his cellphone as he strolled to a fondue restaurant in Switzerland, framed the debate no less grandly.

"Cities either wither as they are preserved in aspic, as it were, or they regenerate," Foster said. "What is now revered by preservationists is the result of earlier transformations."

Supporters of the tower divine a revolution aborning.

Financier Phillippe P. Laffont, who lives in an Upper East Side townhouse, urged Landmark commissioners to walk his neighborhood.

"Look closely," he advised in a letter, "and you will see that modernity erupts from every nook and cranny. Picture windows have replaced the original panes. . . . Floors have been knocked through to create larger spaces. . . . Isn't it time we gave true expression to this pent up desire?"

The plate tectonics of power in New York in fact are shifting. For nearly a century, Park, Madison and Fifth avenues constituted a world all but hermetic in its wealth and self-regard. As late as 1998, financier Steven Rattner could aver that he knew little of the East Village; his was a world demarcated by his vast Upper East Side cooperative, his office aerie in Rockefeller Center and perhaps a side trip to catch the opera at Lincoln Center or a Broadway drama.

The dominance of that world has faded a touch. Last year, Tribeca, in Lower Manhattan, became the most expensive precinct in the most expensive borough in the most expensive city in the nation. The vaguely hip stockbroker lusts for SoHo no less than Park Avenue.

"The problem for the Upper East Side is that it's increasingly looking like a naturally occurring retirement community," said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban studies at New York University's Wagner School. "It no longer has a monopoly on brains, talent and ambitions."

Moss nonetheless views Rosen's proposed tower as too radical. A grande dame of a neighborhood must be led oh so delicately to her facelift.

"This is an idea that's 50 years ahead of its time," Moss said. "The problem for his Lordship is that the House of Lords doesn't have much standing on the Upper East Side."

Rosen is acutely aware that a war with old money is not easily won. (A Mellon and a Von Mueffling chimed in with hand-lettered notes of opposition.) He frames the battle as between the young and daring and "the conformists." He hints darkly that he could build an even bigger building and create a wind tunnel on Madison Avenue.

As for Tom Wolfe . . .

He "used to be, maybe, a good writer," Rosen said. "I don't want to say he's a struggling writer. . . . I don't want to say how many books he sold, but it wasn't too many."

A little later, Rosen talks a little compromise. Maybe he chops a few floors off, maybe he chooses a "champagne-colored bronze to be more contextual with the base." He just hopes the Landmark Commission doesn't toss a dagger into the heart of his project this week.

Whatever. Wolfe wrote his own letter to the Landmark Commission. "The tower," he wrote, "is a flagrant violation upon which the New York City landmarks preservation process was founded in 1965. But this is a new century with new money, new politics and bungee principles."

The sound on the Upper East Side is of an incoming mortar round.

[Jularc]

Here is a little more about this sad news...


Landmarks faults Foster's design for 980 Madison





16-JAN-07

The Landmarks Preservation Commission this morning concluded a public hearing on a controversial planned residential addition to the five-story building at 980 Madison Avenue opposite the Carlyle Hotel, and nine of the 10 commissioners present indicated they did not find the design appropriate.

The 11-member commission, however, did not take a formal vote and Chairman Robert B. Tierney invited the developer, Aby J. Rosen, and his architect, Lord Norman Foster, to return when they have come up with a design that might meet many of the concerns raised by the commissioners.

Those concerns had mostly to do with the height and massing of the proposed 22-story addition that would have contained 18 condominium apartments and also with the question of whether it might establish a precedent for tall towers in historic districts.

After the meeting, Mr. Rosen indicated that he was pleased that the commission indicated it was not opposed to a rooftop addition to the existing building, which was erected in 1950 for Parke-Bernet, the auction house that was subsequently bought by Sotheby's, and altered substantially about two decades ago.

Mr. Rosen is the owner of the Seagram Building and Lever House and most of the commissioners had very high praise for the Mr. Foster and his design, but not atop the existing building.

The proposal would have restored the existing building's fa¿ade by removing about 50 windows and a floor that had been added would have been replaced with a sculpture garden atop a landscaped and slanted inwards roof.

Foster's design for the apartment tower was placed at the north end of the block-long building between 76th and 77th Street and would have been a joined bundle of two glass-clad towers of unequal height and with curved facades.

Mr. Rosen indicated that his team will study the feasibility of a lower tower as well as one with a warmer color fa¿ade that would be, in Mr. Foster's words, "more "bronzy" than the silvery design first presented.

Mr. Foster is also designing a mixed-use tower for Mr. Rosen at 610 Lexington Avenue immediately behind the Seagram Building. Mr. Foster's design for Tower 2 at Ground Zero for Silverstein Properties was recently unveiled. Mr. Foster's notched glass tower addition to the landmark Hearst Building on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 57th Street was completed last year to widespread acclaim.

Mr. Foster told the commission that the landmark process was "definitely enlightening" but also "frustrating," adding after today's hearing that said that while he was disappointed that his design was not approved, architects have to be "optimistic," adding that the project is "a work in progress." He had argued that a vertical addition was more appropriate than "heavy layering" of a horizontal addition, and that a glass rather than masonry fa¿ade was an "appropriate counterpoint," citing similar additions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the Morgan Library as "happy marriages."

Commissioner Margery Perlmutter expressed concerns about what an approval of the design would mean as a precedent for building over low-rise buildings in historic districts. The city, she continued, is not yet "Bladerunner fashion," referring to the monumental height and scale of the urban environment in the movie "Bladerunner," adding that "we have plenty of places still to grow."

Commissioner Joan Gerner said that "the project holds it place with any modern building in the city," but "unlike the Hearst building the Parke-Bernet Building was never intended to be added to and the project is not appropriate."

Chairman Tierney described Foster's design as "brilliant," but called for a "rethinking," adding that "It is not consistent with the landmarks law as we are given to uphold it," he declared.

Jan Hird Pokorny was the only commissioner to support the project.


Copyright © 1994-2007 CITY REALTY.COM INC.

[architect1]

Interesting I like the building. I loved some of the pics in there to amazing shots.

[GFSNYC]

"If this tower is completed," complained Alexandra Donati, who lives in a Park Avenue cooperative where the net worth of members is counted in tens of millions of dollars, "it will mean that power for profit can overwhelm long-term conservation goals."

Or "power for profit" in the way of progress, the hypocracy is not lost here.

One preservationist reported nearly passing out when word broke of the proposed tower atop the five-story art gallery

One can only hope she fell on her minature french poodle.

I don't think anyone should really even bother trying to photoshop that tower, it MAY be visible from the western-most side of the park...from atop a rock. I jog around the resevior enough, the Carlyle is tough to spot as is.

So much for refreshing design in a funeral home of a neighborhood.

[NYC2ATX]

oh well, I guess the Upper East Side will have to remain lagging behind the rest of the city, sucks for them.

[Scruffy]

i guess there is no point in even talking about this one anymore

[NYC2ATX]

[Jularc]

A Pledge To ‘Completely' Alter 980 Madison Plan


By GABRIELLE BIRKNER
January 17, 2007

After his proposal to erect a 22-story glass-and-steel tower atop a Madison Avenue low-rise was criticized sharply yesterday by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, developer Aby Rosen told The New York Sun that he will alter the plans for an addition to the Upper East Side building.

"We're going to change the way the building looks completely," Mr. Rosen said, after a hearing in which commissioners asked the developer to scale back his plans to build a luxury residential tower above the six-story Parke-Bernet Gallery building. The commission stopped short, however, of voting to totally reject the building proposal.

Mr. Rosen said he and his architect, Lord Norman Foster, might propose a shorter building on a wider footprint atop 980 Madison Avenue, between East 76th and East 77th streets. "You can't just take a tower and cut it down, but we can obviously go back to the drawing board and make the building look different — and that's what we're going to do," the developer said in an interview.

Renderings of the sleek cylindrical structure were made public in October. Since then, the proposal has captured the attention of the neighborhood, where its proponents tout the aesthetics of the design and say it would enliven the neighborhood. Project opponents say a contemporary tower is out of place in a historic district.

Mr. Rosen purchased the Parke-Bernet building two years ago for about $120 million. "As much as I'm unhappy that we can't build that tower, I'm very happy that we can build there — and we will build there," he said.

At yesterday's meeting, which ended without a vote for approval or rejection, some commissioners said they would support a building addition of several stories. The hearing was held at the Surrogate courthouse on Chambers Street.

"The presence of the proposed tower would cause irreparable damage," to the delicate balance of elegant low and midrise buildings along Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, a commissioner, Stephen Byrns, said.

Another member of the commission, the Rev. Thomas Pike, said as a clergy member, he is an authority on marriage. "This marriage makes me nervous," Rev. Pike said, of the union of low-rise and high-rise. "I just feel it would be more appropriate somewhere else."

But one commissioner, Jan Hird Pokorny, said he would support the plan in its current form. During the hearing, he held up a photograph of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and an adjacent domed church, showing what he said was the successful juxtaposition of disparate architectural designs.

Mr. Rosen said the revised proposal would likely be a contemporary design, but that he would consider using masonry — in addition to glass — and changing the color of the structure from silver to champagne.

Lord Foster's design is an "architectural masterpiece" that belongs on an undeveloped lot where the public could walk up to it and touch it, a commissioner, Joan Gerner, said. Ms. Gerner said she would consider an addition to the existing structure of "two or, maybe three stories," but no more.

Another commissioner, Christopher Moore, said he would support a four- or five-story addition. Mr. Rosen said he thought he should be allowed to build to a height on par with the 14- or 15-story structures in the neighborhood.

A revised proposal must be presented in a public hearing before Community Board 8, before being resubmitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a commission spokeswoman, Elisabeth de Bourbon, said. She said the commission, chaired by Robert Tierney, decided to postpone a vote in order to give the developer time to submit a "substantially altered plan."

A member of a preservation group, Defenders of the Historic Upper East Side, Teri Slater, said she wished the commission yesterday had voted down Mr. Rosen's plan, which she called "extreme for the location."

"We shouldn't even be talking about height or scale," Ms. Slater, who attended the hearing, said. "We should be talking about what a historic district is supposed to be — and what is the contribution of low buildings inside these districts."


© 2007 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC.

[NYguy]

Meanwhile, the battle continues on the opposite side of Central Park...

NY Times

Historical Society Loses Round in Fight to Renovate a Landmark

By GLENN COLLINS
March 7, 2007

In a stormy two-hour meeting before 200 neighborhood residents last night, the New-York Historical Society was rebuffed by Community Board 7 in Manhattan, which resoundingly opposed the group’s proposal to renovate the exterior of its landmark building at 170 Central Park West.

The board voted 40 to 2 against a plan that would replace the society’s eight-foot-wide doorway, built in 1908, with a 40-foot glass entryway and granite portico at the main entrance between West 76th and 77th Streets.

Because the board is an advisory body, its decision does not block the renovation. But as a signal of strong community opposition, the vote could carry weight with the New York City Planning Commission and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is likely to hold a hearing on the plan this month. Both groups have veto power over the project.

Louise Mirrer, the historical society’s president, said the community board inappropriately linked the renovation plan to the construction of a 23-story luxury residential tower that the society has proposed as an addition to its four-story building.

“I’m disappointed,” Dr. Mirrer said, adding that the community board’s vote, if used as a precedent, “would prevent any landmark anywhere from ever doing anything new.”

Kate Wood, executive director of Landmark West, an Upper West Side preservation group, said that the historical society’s project “deserves to be stopped in its tracks.” She described it as “a Trojan horse” for the luxury tower and added, “Please don’t open the gate.”

Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said he could not take a position for or against the plan. “But we should call it what it is,” he said. “It’s going to be a large tower. It’s not about phase one tonight — it’s about what comes after the facade.”

Dr. Mirrer argued that the renovation is essential to make the building more inviting and its exhibitions more accessible, and, she added, that it might be years before a tower could be approved. But Peter M. Wright, co-chairman of the Park West 77th Street Block Association, termed the design “an ill-conceived facade.” The tower, he said, would intrude upon the Central Park skyline and cast a shadow on the park itself.

“I’m pleased,” Mr. Wright said of the vote, adding that it was a step toward defeating the tower plan.

For weeks, preservation groups that oppose the renovation had been e-mailing their members to attend the meeting, held in an auditorium at the American Bible Society at West 61st Street and Broadway. The society, meanwhile, had been exhorting its members to lobby elected city officials to support the plan.

The debate — which followed an hour of discussion on other projects — was punctuated with catcalls and applause. The society’s plan proposes changes not only to the Central Park West entrance, it also would de-emphasize the West 77th Street entrance and reconfigure existing windows there for the construction of a cafe.

The opposition of the community board “bears the hallmark of a group that has campaigned against the historical society,” Dr. Mirrer said. “Of course we will press on.”

[antinimby]

NIMBYs again. Is their whole purpose in life is to fight development?