http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mother_of_all_snubs_WakiP8COjXH9Bo72a4md8K
Teresa haunts Empire State in plea to pols
By SALLY GOLDENBERG
August 24, 2010
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Call it Mother Teresa's revenge.
The owners of the Empire State Building -- who created an uproar by refusing to illuminate their building to honor the saintly nun -- got a chilly reception yesterday in the City Council when they showed up needing a favor.
Empire State Building President Anthony Malkin went on bended knee asking the council's Zoning Subcommittee to block or change a planned development nearby that he considers skyline competition.
In the last-minute effort, Malkin asked the committee to reject a bid for easements and other zoning changes to make way for a 1,216-foot-tall tower.
He proposed that the project, 15 Penn Plaza, be no more than 825 feet high, making it about two-thirds of its original proposed size. He also asked that it be shaped so that it minimally obscures the view from the western side of the Empire State Building
Vornado Realty Trust, headed by New York division President David Greenbaum, wants to knock down Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue and replace it with a building 34 feet shorter than the Empire State Building, which stands at 1,250 feet.
Those involved in private negotiations between Malkin and the council said the Mother Teresa situation was hanging over the talks.
"Immediately, I said to myself, when I was sitting there, this is Mr. Malkin who is refusing to light up for Mother Teresa," said Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), who sits on the subcommittee.
"His refusal to light up for Mother Teresa is wrong, but I will consider his testimony on the merits," Vacca continued.
One source close to negotiations said Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), who led the fight against Malkin over Mother Teresa, was cool to him during talks.
"There's no love lost between those two parties," the source said.
Quinn, through a spokeswoman, said Malkin's land-use request "has absolutely zero connection to anything but the merits of the development."
The full City Council is scheduled to vote on the project tomorrow. Thursday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Mother Teresa and the day when the Empire State Building has rejected requests to light up the building in blue and white.
Malkin, who claims he's sticking to a policy of not honoring religious or political figures, shrugged off the suggestion that his Mother Teresa refusal could hurt his chances of getting the council on his side.
"I hardly think that anyone would sit there and say, 'You know what, let's screw over the people of New York City, the people of the US and the international iconography of New York City because of one guy who we think is a jerk,' " Malkin said after the hearing.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/index.html
Curse of Mother Teresa? Empire State Building battling bedbugs, rival office tower
Michael Daly
August 24th 2010
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The City Council's subcommittee on zoning and franchises hearing was about to start and the owner of the Empire State Building was sitting in the back of the room, dapper in a tan suit, smart phone in hand.
He seemed not at all like a man under a curse.
"I looked for you in Southampton yesterday," said another guy in a suit.
"I left around 1 o'clock," Tony Malkin said. "Gillibrand was going to be there."
He clearly meant U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who just as clearly is not one of his favorites.
The woman he really should worry about is the one he slighted by refusing to light the Empire State Building in her honor.
The building has been lit in honor of everybody from Mariah Carey to the Grateful Dead. It was green for the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz, but for reasons of his own Malkin declared there was to be no blue and white on Aug. 26, marking the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth.
Of course, there is not really any such thing as a curse. The Curse of the Bambino was surely just a prolonged string of coincidental misfortunes that had no causal link with the Boston Red Sox trading Babe Ruth.
So, it probably only seems that Malkin and the Empire State Building are under the Curse of the Mama.
It is surely just a coincidence that as Mother Teresa's centenary approaches Malkin finds himself faced with the prospect of a rival office tower so close by that from some angles people will be barely able to see his building at all, much less what color it is lit.
"A staggering 1,200-foot office building to be constructed only blocks away from the Empire State Building," Malkin's website says of the structure just 25 feet shorter than his.
On the floor by Malkin's polished shoes were copies of a Photoshop rendering intended to show how the proposed tower would alter the skyline. The image also shows how it could diminish the Empire State Building, making Malkin's property look less iconic than antiquated.
At least the twin towers were twin. These would just be a couple of towers.
That was only part of the Curse of the Mama. Malkin got a reminder of the rest when a dreaded word jumped out of something another guy in a suit was muttering to him. The word always seems shouted.
"BEDBUGS!"
Yep, along with a 1,200-foot challenge, Malkin is also facing a barely visible pest found in his majestic tower's basement.
Imagine King Kong battling not just airplanes but the dreaded pests whose very mention sends people hurrying away!
And who is going to want to pay $34.45 to go to the top of a building that has bedbugs and gaze out from an observatory no higher than a tower just two blocks over?
One of the world's most dramatics view could become the world's most dramatic air shafts.
Anyway, I was glad Malkin was not itching Monday, mainly because I was sitting next to him.
He's hardly your typical owner of a building with bedbugs as he got up in his dapper suit and addressed the subcommittee. He argued against the new tower and the marring of the skyline at least as convincingly as the developer argued for the tower and the jobs it could generate.
After the hearing, Malkin lost a chance to say he'd changed his mind and that the Empire State Building would join Times Square, Brooklyn Borough Hall and the Intrepid in going blue and white for Mother Teresa on Thursday.
He instead said the building will be lit up in red, as well as blue and white, to mark the anniversary of women's suffrage.
He was fighting Mama with Mamas, but there was the matter of BEDBUGS!
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010..._to_turn_down_proposed_15_penn_plaz.html
Empire State Building owner begs City Council to turn down proposed 15 Penn Plaza skyscraper
BY Frank Lombardi, Ryan Strong and Larry Mcshane
August 23rd 2010
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The company behind the project argued the new construction would create much-needed office space in midtown - along with 7,000 new jobs and a $3.3 billion economic impact.
And, company officials said, adding to the glittering array of Manhattan towers is part of the city's ever-evolving allure.
"The fact is that New York's skyline has never stopped changing, and one hopes it never will," said David Greenbaum, head of the New York office of Vornado Realty Trust.
The new skyscraper hopes to provide "a world-class headquarters" for a financial industry firm, though discussions with potential tenants are still in preliminary stages.
Malkin proposed cutting the height by the building from its proposed 1,216 feet to 825 feet, and asked for a change in its shape to keep it from blocking the Empire State's western side.
Greenbaum flatly rejected taking anything off the top: "There's no consideration to that."
The two sides sparred over whether the sleek, state-of-the-art skyscraper would obscure some spectacular views of the 80-year-old tourist attraction.
"Substantially, all of these views are fully intact and fully preserved," Greenbaum said.
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NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
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