Kris
January 9th, 2005, 06:41 AM
January 9, 2005
A Park? Not With My Backyard
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
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The backyard garden at 1 Sutton Place, on a deck atop Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, has been in place for decades, but the co-op's lease for the land has expired. The city wants to remove the fence and let the public in.
The unusual civic tussle over the garden at 1 Sutton Place, an emerald oasis atop a deck over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive that forms the lush backyard of one of the city's most exclusive co-ops, first surfaced a little more than a year ago.
The co-op along the East River regarded the land for the garden, which it began to lease from the city more than 60 years ago, as its private jewel and a compelling amenity for a building where residents routinely pay millions of dollars for their apartments.
The city, which acquired the land in a condemnation proceeding in the 1940's, says the lease expired long ago and the land, the size of two tennis courts, should be turned over to the public.
And now, in a city starved for land, the dispute - one suffused with old money, dusty documents and questions of privileged entitlement and eminent domain - is entering the second, perhaps inevitable, act of its public staging.
The Parks Department is preparing to physically seize more than half of the co-op's backyard and has designs to remove the fences that now keep the public out and turn it into a park. It would link two tiny parks to the north and south, while furthering the city's effort to build a publicly accessible green necklace along the Manhattan waterfront.
The residents - including Ann Cox Chambers, a billionaire who together with her sister controls Cox Communications; Carolyne Roehm, the fashion designer; Sigourney Weaver, the actress; and George Gould, a former undersecretary of the United States treasury - are irate and ready to go to court. They say the Bloomberg administration has got it all wrong.
In the coming months, more will be revealed about this classic real estate story, one replete with secret agreements, disputes over an 1820 land survey, and the city's intentions more than six decades ago. Already the struggle has attracted the attention of urban planners and law students from as far away as California, as well as the local community board and supporters of public parks.
"We're proceeding on the assumption that this is in fact city parkland, even though we've heard to the contrary from the building owners," said Adrian Benepe, the city's parks commissioner. "There's an attempt to maintain a contemplative, gardenesque setting. We're not building a hockey rink in their backyard. We're sensitive to the fact it's cheek-by-jowl with a residential building."
A little history may be necessary.
Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia snatched most of the co-op's backyard under eminent domain in 1939 to build what is now known as the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. The city, in turn, leased the land on the deck over the highway back to the co-op.
But that lease expired 15 years ago. The co-op initially tried to extend the lease in 1989 and 1990, but subsequently decided to keep mum. For unknown reasons, neither the Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani nor Bloomberg administrations negotiated a new lease, or repossessed the land. The co-op's plan of strategic silence appeared to have succeeded.
The issue of the expired lease finally surfaced publicly in 2003 after the state moved to rehabilitate the highway and wanted to know who owned the land overhead. Mr. Benepe now wants the land back under city control.
The co-op has deployed two law firms to mount a defense of its rhododendron-lined garden. They have descended on the municipal archives where the corners of yellowing documents flutter to the floor when pulled from their folders.
Mr. Gould, the avuncular chairman of the co-op, said the proposed park, and presumably any gawkers, would come within 30 or 35 feet of the rear of the building.
"Look at this from the point of view of someone who lives in the building," Mr. Gould said. "If you live on the lower floors, that's a change in lifestyle."
The co-op argues that in 1940 the city simply wanted to build the highway, not a park. In compensation for taking the co-op's land, the city provided the deck beneath its backyard and layered on two feet of earth. Lawyers for the co-op say that the building paid $15,000 toward the cost of building the deck and the garden.
Mr. Gould emphasized that talks with the city are amicable. But, he said, if all else fails, "a court may have to decide" whether the co-op gets to keep its whole backyard, or at least a major portion of it.
In the meantime, the State Department of Transportation is moving forward on a $136 million rehabilitation of the F.D.R. from 54th to 63rd Streets. Work on the tunnel beneath the co-op's garden is set to begin next fall. It will require ripping up the backyard, replacing the waterproof membrane over the tunnel and restoring the land.
The city has given the state its plan for a new park, which would link two pocket parks - one at 56th Street and one at 57th Street - that would also be renovated.
Christian DiPalermo, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, said the city is doing the right thing. "Every piece of green space is special in an urban environment like New York City," she said.
Mr. Benepe said land disputes are not uncommon at the Parks Department, which oversees 29,000 acres of parkland and 500 separate pieces of property.
But, he acknowledged, there has been "nothing quite like this."
For his part, Mr. Gould said the matter has inflamed co-op board meetings, where residents of the building's 42 apartments complain of the loss of their garden and the diminished value of their property. "I've gotten a thousand suggestions," he said. "I'm afraid to walk into the lobby for fear of getting another suggestion for how this should be done."
When the 13-story Italian Renaissance building at 1 Sutton Place South was built in 1927, the land in back sloped down to the East River. The Vanderbilts, Morgans, Delanos and other members of the city's aristocracy were in the midst of migrating farther east from Fifth and Park Avenues.
The Phipps family, a major landowner along the East River whose fortune was based in the steel mills of Pittsburgh, erected 1 Sutton Place as an elegant home for itself and its friends. The triple-arched porte-cochere still opens to a glass-walled lobby with views of the garden and the East River.
Amy Phipps originally occupied the 6,400-square-foot penthouse, which featured a large ballroom at one end of the apartment and a library with a marble fireplace at the other. She passed it on to her son, Winston Churchill Guest, and his wife C. Z. Guest, a socialite who adorned the cover of Time magazine in 1962.
In 2000, Richard Perry, president of Perry Capital, a hedge fund, paid $10.9 million for the 17-room penthouse and did an extensive renovation.
Under the terms of a 1939 agreement, Paul Hammond, then president of 1 Sutton Place, agreed to limit the co-op's claim for its land to $1 in return for the city's promise to build a double-decked roadway that would be covered by two feet of soil "suitable for planting."
In turn, the co-op leased the land above the highway for 50 years, with rent starting at $1 a year and, with an escalator clause, it rose to $1.46 in 1980. The building's lawyers provided letters showing that the co-op tried to renew the lease in 1989 and 1990, as responsibility for the property passed from one city agency to another. But nothing came of it.
The co-op board later passed a resolution requiring prospective apartment buyers to review the semi-secret status of the garden and to sign a strict confidentiality agreement. The resolution states that the board "upon the advice of counsel, decided not to seek the renewal or extension of the lease." Mr. Gould said he did not live in the building at the time and could not explain it.
The city has drawn a line between the co-op property and the city's land based on an 1820 survey of the high water mark, which the co-op disputes.
The co-op's lawyers cite an article written in 1940 by Stanley M. Isaacs, the borough president at the time, who said that the city tried to come to terms with property owners in a way that allowed the city to acquire the land for the highway cheaply, while preserving the privacy and property values of the "costly residential development at Sutton Place."
But in contrast with 1 Sutton Place, the owners of Sutton Square, an enclave of townhouses just to the north, retained ownership of their property and their garden, while granting the city an easement for the highway. There was no lease. "It's a better deal," concluded Robert Appel, a lawyer for Sutton Square, although he says his neighbors should be allowed to keep their garden, all of it.
Community Board 6, whose district includes Sutton Place, has passed a resolution supporting the city's efforts to take back the land and create a park in a neighborhood where there is little open space. A community board member, Edward Rubin, said the Parks Department seems "fairly optimistic that they can withstand any legal challenge this well-heeled co-op may bring."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
A Park? Not With My Backyard
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/01/08/nyregion/09park.xlarge1.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/01/09/nyregion/09park.large2.jpg
The backyard garden at 1 Sutton Place, on a deck atop Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, has been in place for decades, but the co-op's lease for the land has expired. The city wants to remove the fence and let the public in.
The unusual civic tussle over the garden at 1 Sutton Place, an emerald oasis atop a deck over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive that forms the lush backyard of one of the city's most exclusive co-ops, first surfaced a little more than a year ago.
The co-op along the East River regarded the land for the garden, which it began to lease from the city more than 60 years ago, as its private jewel and a compelling amenity for a building where residents routinely pay millions of dollars for their apartments.
The city, which acquired the land in a condemnation proceeding in the 1940's, says the lease expired long ago and the land, the size of two tennis courts, should be turned over to the public.
And now, in a city starved for land, the dispute - one suffused with old money, dusty documents and questions of privileged entitlement and eminent domain - is entering the second, perhaps inevitable, act of its public staging.
The Parks Department is preparing to physically seize more than half of the co-op's backyard and has designs to remove the fences that now keep the public out and turn it into a park. It would link two tiny parks to the north and south, while furthering the city's effort to build a publicly accessible green necklace along the Manhattan waterfront.
The residents - including Ann Cox Chambers, a billionaire who together with her sister controls Cox Communications; Carolyne Roehm, the fashion designer; Sigourney Weaver, the actress; and George Gould, a former undersecretary of the United States treasury - are irate and ready to go to court. They say the Bloomberg administration has got it all wrong.
In the coming months, more will be revealed about this classic real estate story, one replete with secret agreements, disputes over an 1820 land survey, and the city's intentions more than six decades ago. Already the struggle has attracted the attention of urban planners and law students from as far away as California, as well as the local community board and supporters of public parks.
"We're proceeding on the assumption that this is in fact city parkland, even though we've heard to the contrary from the building owners," said Adrian Benepe, the city's parks commissioner. "There's an attempt to maintain a contemplative, gardenesque setting. We're not building a hockey rink in their backyard. We're sensitive to the fact it's cheek-by-jowl with a residential building."
A little history may be necessary.
Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia snatched most of the co-op's backyard under eminent domain in 1939 to build what is now known as the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. The city, in turn, leased the land on the deck over the highway back to the co-op.
But that lease expired 15 years ago. The co-op initially tried to extend the lease in 1989 and 1990, but subsequently decided to keep mum. For unknown reasons, neither the Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani nor Bloomberg administrations negotiated a new lease, or repossessed the land. The co-op's plan of strategic silence appeared to have succeeded.
The issue of the expired lease finally surfaced publicly in 2003 after the state moved to rehabilitate the highway and wanted to know who owned the land overhead. Mr. Benepe now wants the land back under city control.
The co-op has deployed two law firms to mount a defense of its rhododendron-lined garden. They have descended on the municipal archives where the corners of yellowing documents flutter to the floor when pulled from their folders.
Mr. Gould, the avuncular chairman of the co-op, said the proposed park, and presumably any gawkers, would come within 30 or 35 feet of the rear of the building.
"Look at this from the point of view of someone who lives in the building," Mr. Gould said. "If you live on the lower floors, that's a change in lifestyle."
The co-op argues that in 1940 the city simply wanted to build the highway, not a park. In compensation for taking the co-op's land, the city provided the deck beneath its backyard and layered on two feet of earth. Lawyers for the co-op say that the building paid $15,000 toward the cost of building the deck and the garden.
Mr. Gould emphasized that talks with the city are amicable. But, he said, if all else fails, "a court may have to decide" whether the co-op gets to keep its whole backyard, or at least a major portion of it.
In the meantime, the State Department of Transportation is moving forward on a $136 million rehabilitation of the F.D.R. from 54th to 63rd Streets. Work on the tunnel beneath the co-op's garden is set to begin next fall. It will require ripping up the backyard, replacing the waterproof membrane over the tunnel and restoring the land.
The city has given the state its plan for a new park, which would link two pocket parks - one at 56th Street and one at 57th Street - that would also be renovated.
Christian DiPalermo, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, said the city is doing the right thing. "Every piece of green space is special in an urban environment like New York City," she said.
Mr. Benepe said land disputes are not uncommon at the Parks Department, which oversees 29,000 acres of parkland and 500 separate pieces of property.
But, he acknowledged, there has been "nothing quite like this."
For his part, Mr. Gould said the matter has inflamed co-op board meetings, where residents of the building's 42 apartments complain of the loss of their garden and the diminished value of their property. "I've gotten a thousand suggestions," he said. "I'm afraid to walk into the lobby for fear of getting another suggestion for how this should be done."
When the 13-story Italian Renaissance building at 1 Sutton Place South was built in 1927, the land in back sloped down to the East River. The Vanderbilts, Morgans, Delanos and other members of the city's aristocracy were in the midst of migrating farther east from Fifth and Park Avenues.
The Phipps family, a major landowner along the East River whose fortune was based in the steel mills of Pittsburgh, erected 1 Sutton Place as an elegant home for itself and its friends. The triple-arched porte-cochere still opens to a glass-walled lobby with views of the garden and the East River.
Amy Phipps originally occupied the 6,400-square-foot penthouse, which featured a large ballroom at one end of the apartment and a library with a marble fireplace at the other. She passed it on to her son, Winston Churchill Guest, and his wife C. Z. Guest, a socialite who adorned the cover of Time magazine in 1962.
In 2000, Richard Perry, president of Perry Capital, a hedge fund, paid $10.9 million for the 17-room penthouse and did an extensive renovation.
Under the terms of a 1939 agreement, Paul Hammond, then president of 1 Sutton Place, agreed to limit the co-op's claim for its land to $1 in return for the city's promise to build a double-decked roadway that would be covered by two feet of soil "suitable for planting."
In turn, the co-op leased the land above the highway for 50 years, with rent starting at $1 a year and, with an escalator clause, it rose to $1.46 in 1980. The building's lawyers provided letters showing that the co-op tried to renew the lease in 1989 and 1990, as responsibility for the property passed from one city agency to another. But nothing came of it.
The co-op board later passed a resolution requiring prospective apartment buyers to review the semi-secret status of the garden and to sign a strict confidentiality agreement. The resolution states that the board "upon the advice of counsel, decided not to seek the renewal or extension of the lease." Mr. Gould said he did not live in the building at the time and could not explain it.
The city has drawn a line between the co-op property and the city's land based on an 1820 survey of the high water mark, which the co-op disputes.
The co-op's lawyers cite an article written in 1940 by Stanley M. Isaacs, the borough president at the time, who said that the city tried to come to terms with property owners in a way that allowed the city to acquire the land for the highway cheaply, while preserving the privacy and property values of the "costly residential development at Sutton Place."
But in contrast with 1 Sutton Place, the owners of Sutton Square, an enclave of townhouses just to the north, retained ownership of their property and their garden, while granting the city an easement for the highway. There was no lease. "It's a better deal," concluded Robert Appel, a lawyer for Sutton Square, although he says his neighbors should be allowed to keep their garden, all of it.
Community Board 6, whose district includes Sutton Place, has passed a resolution supporting the city's efforts to take back the land and create a park in a neighborhood where there is little open space. A community board member, Edward Rubin, said the Parks Department seems "fairly optimistic that they can withstand any legal challenge this well-heeled co-op may bring."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company