Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy
The city isn't planning to tear down anything. The developer who owns the site plans to put up office space on what is currently a dump on life support.
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I don't have any particular love for the Hotel Pennsylvania, but to call for tearing down a building because some bums are sleeping in a subway entrance that happens to be in it is really a stretch. This is the same type of logic that has been used to needlessly tear down many historic buildings in this city: "it's old, it's dirty, it's run-down, it's blight"... Yes, the Hotel Pennsylvania is run down - would you invest in remodeling it if you were planning on tearing it down? If for some reason the LPC reversed their earlier decision and decided to landmark it, you can bet the owner would make a go of renovating it to get as much revenue out of it as he could. Grand Central was run-down and dirty until it was renovated and now it's considered one of the jewels of the city. If we tore down every historic building that some landlord decided to not maintain, then we'd have a far, far less interesting city.