Can anybody here build anything? [Archive]

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JMGarcia

June 12th, 2005, 01:27 PM

This article certainly sums up how I've been feeling about NY lately...

June 12, 2005
NY Newsday

Like a model built of Lego blocks that had worn out its welcome on the dining room table, another bold public-works plan got rudely swept away last week.

There will be no New York Sports and Convention Center on Manhattan's West Side - at least not as Mayor Michael Bloomberg had conceived it. And barring a miracle, there will be no 2012 Olympics in the city, which means another Bloomberg dream is dead.

So strong was Albany's distaste for the $2.2-billion New York Jets stadium that its executioners didn't even bother to cover their tracks. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick) killed it in broad daylight without the usual subterfuge.

Meanwhile, around Ground Zero in lower Manhattan - nearly four years after Osama bin Laden laid waste to the World Trade Center - the state has yet to order a single beam of steel for the new iconic Freedom Tower, as Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted in a speech last month. And it has yet to draw up solid plans for a new rail line that will link downtown with Kennedy Airport and Jamaica Station.

We have dreamt big before

What's the matter with New York? Why did our creativity seem to pack up and head for parts unknown circa 1970?

This is the state that put together the Erie Canal, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge and Long Island's great network of parkways and beaches. But what great public works have we built lately?

The record is embarrassingly thin.

Now it is possible to make too much of what happened last week. Indeed, on the merits, Silver and Bruno were correct to bludgeon the stadium.

The arena would have put taxpayers on the hook for about $1 billion worth of subsidies in all. It was a bad idea, a reckless bet designed to bring us the Olympics, even though Paris had an inside track. What's more, the stadium - 30 stories tall - would have loomed over prime commercial and residential space near the Hudson River, blocking sun and water views. It would have cast a pall over the vibrant neighborhood that Bloomberg wants to build there.

But for all that, something is missing here. If only the public passion to plan and to build were as great as the public passion to delay and destroy. In a place that bristles with as much creativity as New York, things don't have to be this way. Yet they have been this way for what seems an eternity.

Whatever happened to Westway - the six-lane highway that was supposed to serve the West Side of Manhattan? It died in the late 1980s because, among other reasons, it would have disturbed the Hudson River's striped bass.

Whatever happened to the Second Avenue subway project in Manhattan? That one has endured more red signals than a rush-hour No. 1 Broadway local. It's moving ahead right now - but a tag team of gophers burrowing under the street could probably get downtown faster than folks from the cash-starved Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

And whatever happened to the urgency this region felt after Sept. 11, 2001 to rebuild lower Manhattan? So slow has the state been on some projects that Washington is making noises about taking back some of its money.

What's the problem here?

Were we so traumatized by the genuine excesses of Robert Moses, who reigned as lord of public works here for decades, that we forgot about the value of his genius and drive?

Did our society grow so litigious that it ultimately paralyzed itself?

Did our politicians grow so sensitive to the caviling of the NIMBY groups that they felt most comfortable saying no to everything?

Did the fiscal crisis of the 1970s make all new public-works projects sound like profligate ideas as the city fought just to rebuild its infrastructure?

Only this is clear: At some point, our political system - not to mention the media - started to emphasize the plight of the inconvenienced few at the expense of a taxpaying majority. The price of that mistake is obvious now.

Hosannas for change

In his speech last month to a group of city business people, Schumer broadly attacked what he regards as a "culture of inertia." He was met with a chorus of hosannas. Unsurprisingly, this notion grew to a crescendo last Monday after Silver and Bruno wrote out the death certificate for the West Side stadium.

"One of the great dangers," mused the mayor, as he reflected upon the worst defeat in his short political career, is that big-time developers are "going to get disheartened" and say they can't build anything in the city "because the politics always get in the way."

But here's where the story gets really interesting - because Bloomberg isn't necessarily right.

Today, happily, redevelopment plans are everywhere. There's the blueprint to remodel the old main post office in midtown as Moynihan Station. It will serve as a center for cafes and other amenities and also as a gateway to the trains that serve Pennsylvania Station.

There's the plan to turn Downtown Brooklyn into a district of offices, shops, homes and its own professional basketball team. There's the project to rework the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront. These don't have the glitz of Bloomberg's West Side proposal, but neither do they have the drawbacks.

A sense of purpose

Yet here's what the New York region still lacks as it tries to get them done: As Schumer points out, it lacks a clear sense of purpose - from ordinary New Yorkers as well as from its media. With any major public works project, the press must do a better job of explaining not only the needs of a self-interested few but the needs of the larger community.

Do New Yorkers want to build things again? Well, how nice. But if they're serious, they need to unite and pressure the pols to make it happen. They could start with some of the red tape that is holding up Moynihan Station.

And hey, if Bloomberg is still serious about his resolve to redevelop the West Side, this could still happen, but "organically," without the help of a huge football stadium. The catalyst in fact could be Moynihan Station. When that project is done, it's not so hard to imagine high-end development spreading westward across the urban netherlands toward the Hudson just as Bloomberg had hoped.

Pick the right projects

As for downtown's laggardly pace of reconstruction, one business booster had this to say: "I think our indulgence of distraction is a serious problem."

The politicians are easy enough to blame for our inertia. But they shouldn't take the rap alone. To be effective, they need public support. They need money. And - Mr. Mayor, please note - they need to pick the right projects to push. New York can build anything it wants to build. But it needs the will and it needs discipline.

ddny

June 12th, 2005, 02:12 PM

New York Times Op-Ed

June 12, 2005
How New York Can Get Its Groove Back

HAVE New Yorkers lost their chutzpah? The demise of the proposed Jets stadium on the Far West Side (and the attendant blow to the city's 2012 Olympic hopes), along with the politically induced inertia at the World Trade Center site, has led to speculation that the Big Apple is turning into a crab apple. So the Op-Ed Page approached several prominent New Yorkers with a question: If the city wants to start thinking big again, where should it start? Their suggestions follow.

Olympian Dreams
By MIKE WALLACE

I DON'T think that politics has paralyzed Gotham's once vaunted ability to get big things done. At this very moment, New York is driving City Water Tunnel No. 3 through bedrock 60-odd stories beneath Manhattan, one of the most colossal construction projects on earth. Nor (happily enough) did every enterprise proposed in the Good Old Days come to fruition - like the proposal in 1893 to tear down City Hall, or Mayor William J. Gaynor's suggestion in 1910 to ram a new street through Midtown between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

There are, certainly, large-scale transportation proposals now on the table that are worthy of our collective consideration, like the the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel to link New Jersey and Brooklyn. But arguably more important are less flashy initiatives for struggling economic sectors: to revitalize our manufacturing base by developing new eco-industries; to bolster communications by creating the world's first totally wireless city; to reinvigorate our creative base by increasing financing for cultural institutions and enhancing cooperation between our academic institutions; and to gear up tourism, in part by throwing an improved hat in the ring for the 2016 Olympics.

Mike Wallace is a professor of history at John Jay College and the co-author of "Gotham."

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Back on Track
By MAURA MOYNIHAN

NO project would yield more tangible benefits for our region than Moynihan Station. As a child, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, my late father, sold newspapers and shined shoes in the old Penn Station. As senator, he secured nearly $1 billion in federal, state and city funds to rebuild the station in the landmark James A. Farley Post Office.

Moynihan Station offers a rare chance at civic redemption for that act of urbanicide in 1963, when the original Penn Station fell to the wrecker's ball, forcing millions to enter our city through a hole under a basketball court. Compare the bistros and boutiques of Grand Central to Penn Station's joyless junk-food stalls. Consider the risks of not upgrading the security of our public transport systems. (Think: an open, well-protected space above ground versus an antiquated network of tunnels and warrens below ground.) Try to imagine reviving the West Side without a modern, functional station to spur development, trade and tourism - it can't be done.

Senator Moynihan said that money used for infrastructure is not spending; it's investing. But federal appropriations that sit for too long unspent can be rescinded, and the station is now nine years behind schedule. My father assembled the permits and the financing; McKim, Mead & White left us a grand Beaux-Arts structure. The governor, the mayor and our senators support the station. All we need is for the state to give the job to a developer.

Just days after 9/11 my father said that the best thing New York could do would be to build the station. "Architecture," he once wrote, "is inescapably a political art, and it reports faithfully for ages to come what the political values of a particular age were." Moynihan Station would reflect our deepest, most cherished values. Let the jackhammers begin.

Maura Moynihan is a senior fellow at the Regional Plan Association.

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Constructing Jobs
By CHARLES B. RANGEL

WE suffer an unemployment rate of nearly 30 percent among black and Latino young people. This crisis must be addressed through the city's commitment to recruit, train and open the doors of union membership to unemployed minority youths.

To that end, we should rebuild Lower Manhattan and pursue three additional projects. We should develop the Hudson River waterfront from 125th to 131st Streets and the upland area from the piers to Broadway to include entertainment venues, open spaces, housing and office space. We should rebuild the Victoria Theater site on 125th Street to include a performing arts theater, a museum, rehearsal space, condominiums and offices. And we should create a plaza of stores - big box and otherwise - on the river in East Harlem. The projects are not meant to be substitutes for the stadium; they are meritorious in themselves, both in their purpose and in the thousands of construction jobs they will create for young people.

Charles B. Rangel is a Democratic representative from New York.

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Pleasure Principles
By TOM WOLFE

MARSHALL McLUHAN waited for the reporter's lips, mine, in fact, to stop moving, leaned back in his seat in the rear garden of that year's (1967) restaurant of the century, Lutèce, looked up at a brilliant blue New York-in-May sky, lifted a forefinger and twirled it above his head in a loop that took in the 30-, 40-, 50-story buildings that rose all around and said, apropos of nothing anybody at the table had been talking about:

"Of course, a city like New York is obsolete. People will no longer concentrate in great urban centers for the purpose of work. New York will become a Disneyland, a pleasure dome ..."

At that stage of his mutation from unknown Canadian English teacher to communications swami and international celebrity, cryptic, Delphic, baffling, preposterous predictions were McLuhan's trump suit. Intellectuals argued over whether he was a genius or a dingbat. If the case of New York is any proof, however, the man was a pure genius.

Twenty-first century New York is fast becoming what Marshall McLuhan saw as he looked up in that garden out back at Lutèce almost 40 years ago: a one-industry town, strictly in the pleasure dome business, with a single sales pitch, "You're Gonna Love Gothamland."

When it comes to the industries that created the metropolis 100 years ago, New York, like many big American cities, is a ghost town. Manufacturing, most notably New York's once famous garment industry, has moved to sweatier shops in China, Thailand, Mexico and Fiji. Mainstream retail has long since departed for the suburban "edge cities" Joel Garreau writes about. New York's original reason for being, shipping, is so far gone that the great piers on the Hudson River are now used for everything from an aircraft carrier welded to a dock as a museum to a golf driving range with a net to keep the balls from landing in the water.

Real estate development and the construction industry have never recovered from the commercial real estate crash of the 1990's that left nearly 60 million square feet of office space vacant, much of it in lonely and still unlovable Lower Manhattan. In terms of the location of the big investment firms, Wall Street today should be called Sixth Avenue and Broadway. Moreover, it is now obvious that there is no sound economic or geographical reason a financial market should consist of a great mob of men with sopping dark half-moons on their shirts beneath their armpits flailing about on "the floor" of some antiquated "stock exchange"... or in New York at all. The hemorrhaging of corporate headquarters from New York during the 1990's was stanched finally by a drug available only in Manhattan - Lunch.

Many a chief executive who knew it would save his corporation a fortune if he moved it to Pleasantville, Cincinnati or South Orange could not conceive of ... life without Lunch ... that daily celebration of his royalty at the sort of peculiarly Manhattan restaurant where a regular ensemble of maîtres d' and captains hovers about the great man and his guests cooing sweet nothings in movie French ...where nothing so vulgar as a three-martini lunch ensues but, rather, a refined one-gallon-of-Côtes-du-Rhône lunch ... and his majesty the chief executive feeds in a supragustatory bliss upon Brazil-nut-and rosemary-encrusted day-boat halibut lying on a bed of millet infused with a double fermentation of malbec grape ... and the waiters arrive bearing the artistry of a chef for whom the owners of this restaurant, this month's restaurant of the century, all five years of it, combed the earth.

Such an ambrosial experience is a product not of the food industry but of the pleasure dome. None of Gothamland's stocks in trade are tangible. Rather, all offer the sheer excitement, even euphoria, of being ... "where things are happening."

Humanity comes to New York not to buy clothes but, rather ... Fashion ...not to see musicals and plays but to experience "Broadway," which resembles the turn-of-the-19th-century trolley town one finds himself in upon entering Disneyland in California. If the traffic on Broadway should ever lack congestion, if the people ever stop spilling over the sidewalks and out into the street, if they ever stop hyperventilating in a struggle to get to the will-call window before the curtain goes up, the producers and theater owners should hire hordes of the city's unemployed actors to serve as extras and recreate it all.

Millions roam New York's art museums each year, not to enjoy the artwork but to experience the ineffable presence of ...Culture. People throng Yankee Stadium game after game, season after season, not to see the Yankees play, not this year's Yankees, as the fellow might say, but to inhale ...The Myth ...

Which brings us to the fate of the West Side stadium proposal. In the short run, it may look like a foolish expenditure of billions desperately - it's inevitably desperate, government's "need" for money - desperately needed elsewhere. In the McLuhan-length run, however, a few billion might prove to be a bargain, especially if it led straight to holding an event the magnitude of the Olympics in New York. After all, what does our city now live on? Why, something about as solid as a sharp intake of breath: the world's impression that Gothamland and only Gothamland ...is where things are happening.

Tom Wolfe is the author, most recently, of "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

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Site Lines
By GLENN D. LOWRY

WHETHER or not one supported building the West Side stadium - or even the city's Olympic bid, which I did - the problems that ultimately killed the project underscore the difficulty of doing any kind of large-scale building in New York. But great cities, in the end, are defined by their ability to move past politics and local issues to create the unexpected.

What New York needs today, if it wants to be a leading city in the future, is a comprehensive citywide plan that takes into account the potential of all the boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens in particular. The Museum of Modern Art operated in Long Island City, Queens, from 2002 to 2004 and continues to have a presence there through its affiliate P.S. 1. This area, especially Queens Plaza, offers special opportunities to reimagine the city without the kind of debilitating battles that took their toll on the West Side. Think, for example, of Queens Plaza as a direct extension of the East Side of Manhattan, anchored by a core group of distinctive buildings and a network of small parks, not as a bleak tangle of train tracks, roads and the worst of 1960's architecture.

The greatest challenge facing the city is the need to rethink the World Trade Center site. There is no greater opportunity for any city in the world to define itself than this project. Success, though, requires the recognition that the status quo is unacceptable. New York is an extraordinary city, but it needs an extraordinary solution to the competing and conflicting demands of this project. This can come only from a clear vision and the will to resolve who really controls the site.

Competing levels of government or the needs of the developer are no excuse for the current situation. It is time for the legislative and executive branches of government in Albany to realize that someone has to be in charge of the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan and that no one has a greater stake in this area than the city itself. Responsibility and authority must go together if anything is to get done. We will be remembered for the intelligence of the plan we ultimately pursue in Lower Manhattan, and for the quality and integrity of that plan's realization, not for how quickly the site has been rebuilt. The demise of the West Side stadium is a clarion call.

Glenn D. Lowry is the director of the Museum of Modern Art.

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Convention Wisdom
By TIM ZAGAT

NOW that the stadium is less likely to be built, one may wonder what would be the best use for the area around the Javits Convention Center (a k a the Hudson Yards). All told, we are talking about 40 to 50 blocks south of Javits that extend over the rail yards and down to 28th Street. My proposal would be to use five of those blocks to expand the Javits center to 3 million square feet, from 800,000. Here's why.

During my three years as chairman of NYC & Company, the city's official tourism marketing arm, I found that the uniform view among industry leaders was that the Javits center is drastically undersized. For New York, the biggest city in the United States, to have the 18th-largest convention center is an embarrassment. Even the state's current plan to expand the center to 1.1 million square feet won't make it stack up to the facilities of other cities. Chicago, for example, has 4.5 million square feet of convention space. Las Vegas has 5.5 million, with a million more under construction.

With the extension of the No. 7 subway line, an expanded Javits would become a major engine for economic growth. Some experts have estimated that a 3-million-square-foot Javits center would pump $3 billion a year into the New York economy - not to mention 33,000 permanent jobs and a huge number of construction jobs.

With the expansion, we will be able to attract conventions from around the world, even from Europe, where convention costs are far higher than here. The new influx of visitors would be of enormous benefit to our restaurants, stores, hotels, theaters and cultural institutions.

Given the economic consequences of this project, Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg should appoint a panel to take responsibility for the intelligent development of the entire 50-block area, with the expansion of Javits leading the way.

Tim Zagat is the publisher of Zagat survey guides.

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A Little Vision
By AMY SACCO

SMALL steps are sometimes the better way to achieve a vision.

Let's put the charm back into New York with small projects like the High Line, rooftop greening, park enhancement and continuing development of the waterfront. We should turn the dilapidated mansion on Roosevelt Island into an open-air theater. And why not build an arts center over the West Side rail yards as an extension of the Javits Convention Center? It could be a crosscultural stock exchange, offering lofts for visiting artists, architects, writers and poets who would enhance our city with their ideas.

Amy Sacco owns Bungalow 8 nightclub and Bette Restaurant.

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Use and Use Again
By PHILIP K. HOWARD

THE inability to get large public projects off the ground in New York reflects less a lack of ambition than a failure to come to consensus over the role of government in land use. There is a tendency to criticize any public investment in projects that are not absolutely needed. We take for granted our great public works, like Central Park and the Public Library, as if they were handed down by Moses. Actually, they were created by real people with precious dollars, public and private (including some by another Moses, Robert). These are our temples.

Today, however, instead of investing in public buildings the government tries to cut corners and generate financing for projects like the Moynihan rail station by selling zoning rights so that public buildings and parks find themselves in the shadow of oversized private development. This approach also leads to single-developer schemes with super-blocks and large plazas, which destroy the organic vitality of the city. Their public space is too calculated and cold. Just as important as placing a higher priority on public buildings and parks, we must ensure that private development is set in the traditional street grid, so that it is easily adapted for new uses as the economy and city evolve.

Philip K. Howard is chairman of the Municipal Art Society of New York.

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Connecting Dots
By RICHARD D. PARSONS

BIG projects capture the headlines but, aside from the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, it's time to focus on smaller development opportunities.

A good example is the restoration of the Victoria Theater in Harlem, which will anchor a new entertainment district. There are plenty of other worthy candidates: JetBlue is prepared to build a new terminal at Kennedy Airport that could double the 4,000 jobs the new airline has already created and could also complement the adjacent landmark T.W.A. terminal designed by Eero Saarinen; the city is set to build New York's first commercial science park on the Bellevue Hospital Center campus, which could jump-start the biotech industry here; and there are plans for a major cultural center around the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which would ensure that my native borough will be a magnet for the next generation of the New York art scene.

These are just a few of the many projects that have been in the works for years, and with just a little extra attention we can bring them to reality soon. In sum, the Next Big Thing may be a whole lot of little things - call it economic pointillism.

Richard D. Parsons is chairman of Time Warner.

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The French Lesson
By PETER EISENMAN

EVERY two years, the Venice Architecture Biennale awards a prize for the best urban planning and architecture to a city. New York has never received this award because, apart from a handful of great old buildings, it has had little to show of architectural innovation for the past 50 years. Great architecture has rarely been a goal of our political decision makers, as we have witnessed in recent weeks.

There are two good models New York could use to begin to change this condition. One is grand projects of Paris under François Mitterrand, which involved international architects competing with French architects for major public buildings. These were financed before the competitions were even announced, and thus ultimately built. Another format is Berlin's International Building Exhibition project in the 1980's, which involved international competitions for public housing projects throughout the city. While these were of a more modest scale than Paris, they too attracted international press attention and still attract tourists today.

Government-led projects would of course be difficult in New York, where the interests of developers reign. So let's begin in a place where developers never tread: I propose 30 design competitions - both open and invited, national and international, and juried by peers - to create a new image for New York through its schools. These would be spread across the five boroughs. If the $600 million in public subsidy for the Jets stadium was put where it is needed - in our neighborhoods - not only would our children study in world-class environments but our city could also boast of creating a new concept in education.

Peter Eisenman is an architect.

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O.K., Let's Give Up
By DONALD J. TRUMP

IT is much easier to defeat something in New York City than to build something. With that in mind, we should consider whether we want the easy way out or if we can accept a challenge. New Yorkers have been known for their energy, their strength and, especially in the past few years, for their courage. Maybe we're just worn out after pulling together so well after Sept. 11, 2001. It's been a haul. So maybe we just want to sit back and let things take care of themselves - elsewhere.

The process in New York is very tough, and that's why I am building major projects in cities like Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Have you heard the term "contextual zoning" yet? It's a biggie in New York. So are the community boards, which like to make things close to impossible.

I win many battles with community boards, but the project that is completed is never as good as what I started with. It gets beaten and battered by people who are often more interested in hearing themselves talk than in what is best for the city. The originality of the architecture gets taken away from me as a developer and artist, and from the city. I don't want to build buildings that have the same height and look as the buildings next door. Take the spires off the great old New York buildings and see what our skyline would look like - not much!

So, should we forget about being on the cutting edge? We can shrug our shoulders and say "C'est la vie" and maybe sip some cappuccino at an outdoor café. We can let the work be done elsewhere, and by other people, and for a change we can be the audience instead of the performers. Let's give other cities a chance; let's keep thinking small. Or, if we want to think big, let's just start thinking. Believe me, the answers for New York are not very complicated.

Donald J. Trump is a real-estate developer.

TomAuch

June 12th, 2005, 02:48 PM

This is the same city that only took a year to build the ESB? This is the same city that built one of the world's most expansive subway systems? This city was actually able to create one of the world's greatest parks?
You're right about this. NIMBYism is too prevalent in New York. Granted there have been some developments that deserved to be killed (Moses' Lower Manhattan Expressway for example, and if only we could have stopped the building of the current hell-hole that is the "new" Penn Station) but the fact that we let knee-jerk NIMBYs kill every project, or that we let litigation to kill everything is bad for NY in terms of thinking big. Can you image what would have happened if the NIMBY's had been around 100 years ago? They would have killed the subway system, most of our bridges, the Singer, Woolworth, Chrysler, and ESB.

Fabrizio

June 12th, 2005, 04:21 PM

Big Projects: Does any one remember Phillip Johnson´s fascist-style plan for Times Square? Or Trumps original laughable kitshy plan for "Television City"? Imagine if they had been built. And not only did they tear down Penn Station they also tried to tear down Carnegie Hall..... and Grand Central!! Imagine. Is the city really better off with out the Lunt Fontaine, the Helen Hayes, the Morrosco? Aren´t you happy that there are crazies who love architecture and the theatre and history and culture enough to stand in the rain and the snow and picket... even if you´re not completely in agreement with them? Isn´t it interesting that the residential areas of NYC that are the most expensive, are those most tightly zoned and preserved? Funny that Tribeca is now one of the US´10 most expensive residential zip codes. Just because it´s a "Big Project" doesn´t make it disirable. Yes, they did tear down the original Waldorf to build the Empire State and blah... blah....blah... but back then developers gave back to the community with beautiful, expensive materials... artistic details and exquiste workmanship.... today in too many cases, we get junk. Sorry for rambling am in a rush...

NoyokA

June 12th, 2005, 04:34 PM

Fabrizio

June 12th, 2005, 04:56 PM

"Modern architecture on the water front" is fine... a heavy handed wall of skyscrapers lined-up in a park (including one at 152 stories high) should give pause...

NoyokA

June 12th, 2005, 05:01 PM

"Modern architecture on the water front" is fine... a heavy handed wall of skyscrapers lined-up in a park (including one at 152 stories high) should give pause...

Heavy handed is what is there now. Helmut Jahn's towers were not made of stone, they were all glass and without anything blocking their views they assumed their own identity standing as stationary architecture.

Fabrizio

June 12th, 2005, 05:11 PM

Ok, Ok fine...

Bastards for blocking the destruction of Grand Central... we would have been better off with out it. Penn Station.... c´mon it was OLD! Carnegie Hall? Who cares. Who needs those creepy musty theatres? Bull doze em. Cast Iron architecture.... what a joke.... etc. and etc... Let´em do whatever they want, when ever they want, where ever they want...

antinimby

June 12th, 2005, 06:32 PM

This says it all:
ANY building in Dubai right now will outclass 98% of the buildings in NY.
Take any Dubai building and if it was proposed for NY, people here would jump for joy, that's how bad it has become.
And it's not ending anytime soon either.
In a week or two, David Childs will come up with another box for the Freedom Tower.
We are living on the laurels and forward thinking of past New Yorkers.
We are leaving nothing for future NYer's.

JMGarcia

June 12th, 2005, 08:11 PM

Fabrizio, there is a difference between saving things of value and getting absolutely nothing of value new built.

The last of NY's great projects were all planned from the 60's and early 70's including the water tunnel and Battery Park City. The long list of failures since then is amazing.

Trump's westside development is a prime example. The architecture was dumb-downed, its a wall of buildings along the water, and the highway never got fixed taking away greatly from the park. Now, IMO, it didn't need to have the world's tallest but it should have had something much better than what the lawyers finally agreed to.

There's nothing much worth saving around the railyards or the Javitz, let's see if NY can get anything decent built there.

The 2nd Ave. subway has been going no where for years. Ditto, the new Penn Station. The new Fulton St. station is already shrinking into nothing special.

You don't need to lose anything of value to build these projects and they still can't get done.

I can't think of one world class development in the city in decades.

NoyokA

June 12th, 2005, 08:16 PM

I can't think of one world class development in the city in decades.

Atlantic Yards will be the first in awhile.

alex ballard

June 12th, 2005, 08:38 PM

NewYorkYankee

June 12th, 2005, 08:41 PM

New York will continue to develop world class projects. Give it time.

alex ballard

June 12th, 2005, 08:49 PM

As for NIMBYs, I think this is a conversation that goes way beyond the "skyscraper" specturm. I believe that this is an issue of NY's mentality more than anything.

NY has a "welfare" mentality. It seems this state is obssesed with taking care of every person and meeting every need. What no one in Albany has realized is that this goal, however lofty, is not realistic. If someone's desire was to kill people, what should we do?

The answer is that not every need should be met. I have often said on this board, particularly about the WTC, that more "bottom-line" thinking is in order. I have been met with resistance and I believe that it shows NYers really care.

But the fact is that the rest of America doesn't. I showed you pictures of three fast growing cities and none of them had any appeal whatsoever. Should we be like that? NO! But should we take a sense of urgency and worry more about buidling space of workers and less about what trees are planted? Yes.

Going back to the "Welfare" mentality, it's simply not feasible. It's admireable that NY has taken upon itself to protect and provide every person. But unless done on a national level, this mission will fail. Every seems to feel for the 80 year old shopkeeper in the way of a new skyscraper project. But in reality, he can go somewhere else. People bitched and moaned about Radio Row, The Singer tower and the like. But without those sacrfices, Lower Manhattan would be even worse off today.

People need to realize that life is hard and unfair, but you need to deal. Moving across the street to accomdate people is not that big a deal. Get over it.

Oh, and to those who point out successes like GC and SoHo, yes, there are some good points. However, there are better ways of determining value than standing in front of bulldozers.

Let's all keep something in mind, without developers, there is no SoHo. Everything you love and cherish will be left in a state of abandonment and negliect as people move to greener pastures. Don't let NY turn into Detroit. Please, move out of the way.

NoyokA

June 12th, 2005, 09:07 PM

The reason nothing great has been built in NYC in recent years is not a lack of vision or ambition, its simply NIMBY's and a lack of foresight from the NYC political machine.

212

June 12th, 2005, 09:11 PM

The truly great thing New Yorkers have done in the past 15 years is restore the city's streetscape. All those parking lots and patches of dirt that are now storefronts, row houses, gardens ... the once-scary neighborhoods that are now vibrant day and night ... that's a much bigger deal than any single megaproject.

NewYorkYankee

June 12th, 2005, 09:24 PM

Agreed. Gentrification and affordable housing are tremendous "projects".

alex ballard

June 12th, 2005, 09:25 PM

/\ Not NYC really. City Hall and City Council has always been pretty foresighted. It's the community boards and Albany that is so bad. Really bad.

NY is in fear of another Robert Moses. But as the years pass, that will begin to fade. Look at all the new housing and office development.

Also, this seems to be more of a Manhattan issue than in the Outer boroughs.

pianoman11686

June 12th, 2005, 10:29 PM

I think this conversation is 1000% gloomier than the reality truly is. The fact is that the age of the "Public" work is over. And that applies to everywhere. What's the last major dam built in Nevada? Power Plant in Illioins? Bridge in California? Monument in DC? The answer is that it has been quite a while.

Ever heard of the Big Dig? It's an 18-year long, 11 billion-dollar public works project in Boston that will allow the city to reclaim prime real estate in its Downtown after tunneling the former 6-lane elevated highway underground. It employs 5000 people and is about 4 years away from completion. The biggest and most complex highway project ever undertaken in the US, and also one of the largest construction sites in the world.

Sure, we're not building as many Hoover Dams and Empire State Buildings as we did 70 years ago, but that doesn't mean the age of public works is over. The fact is, most of the infrastructure we need is already in place, and only moderate improvements to that infrastructure are needed every now and then, with some grand exceptions (like Boston). Moreoever, most of those memorable projects were undertaken during the Great Depression and other bleak times, when people looked to big government to provide them with jobs. America hasn't experienced that kind of need in a long time, and now, the preferred course of action is the infamous tax rebate, which doesn't seem to do much. While I hope future leaders will recognize this, and look at undertaking important projects that will keep our infrastructure "world-class" (such as making our major cities fully wireless), I also think that some of the things we're all hoping for - Moynihan Station, the freight rail tunnel, the JFK train tunnel, 2nd Avenue Subway, new Tappan Zee Bridge - will get underway soon. No matter how indecisive our current leaders our, at some point in the near future, some one will say, "we've got to stop twiddling our thumbs and get to work" and mean it.

ZippyTheChimp

June 12th, 2005, 10:30 PM

showed you pictures of three fast growing cities and none of them had any appeal whatsoever. Should we be like that? NO! But should we take a sense of urgency and worry more about buidling space of workers and less about what trees are planted? Yes.
There are factors that you have overlooked as to why these cities are growing faster than New York.

New York has reached a level of density that they have not achieved. It relatively easy to double the population of a city of 500,000, but I doubt New York City will ever again double its population. I don't think I would want it to. That same density means land here is much more expensive than a place such as Las Vegas.

For those reasons, if New York tries to compete on those terms, it will definitely lose. New York must measure itself on the quality of its citizens, not a race to produce little future consumers.

Although some think we have already reached that point and there is disagreement as to the total number and when it will occur, just about all forecasters agree that we will reach supportable maximum population sometime in the 21st century.

*Short answer: If New York makes itself like Houston and it remains expensive (which it would), why on earth would anyone be stupid enough to come here?

alex ballard

June 12th, 2005, 10:38 PM

/\ Ummm...NYC is far from done. There are plenty of 1 story buidlings around and under/un-used sites. I would imagine NYC having 20 Million people one day.

As for those other cities, I see them petiering out at some point. But what I'm trying to get at is that NYC needs a can-do spirit.

I'm not trying to get rid of the wonderful programs and attitude of caring and compassion of the city, but we can do more with less (as Bloomie puts it).

Less taxes, Same/better services, More growth.

Teno

June 12th, 2005, 10:38 PM

However, the age of the "private" work in NYC is just beginning. NY is entering a new age of "privatization" of it's grand works. The next big subway/skyscraper/housing development/anything will be private. This is a good thing.

It is a two edged sword.

Profit is the the over lording master of private investment. Profit comes before the community or civic pride.

ZippyTheChimp

June 12th, 2005, 11:03 PM

/\ Ummm...NYC is far from done. There are plenty of 1 story buidlings around and under/un-used sites. I would imagine NYC having 20 Million people one day.
You can't just count the empty lots and low rise buildings and use some formula to stick X number of people there.

How is a population 2 1/2 times the present level going to coexist in the public realm?

20 million? If NYC matches the national average over the next 50 years, which is highly unlikely, the population would be 12 million.

Ninjahedge

June 13th, 2005, 10:09 AM

The easiest way to refute the population boom is just looking now at all the people moving OUT of the city to live elsewhere.

the cost and crowding is making people go to places that were considered to be the outskirts of the city. Places like Red Hook and Jersey City are seing building booms because of the fact that people still want to be here, but not HERE here. You hear? ;)

The subway system should be a good example of why we will not get 2½ times more people in here. Rush hour trains are almost at Tokyo levels of crowding now and it is not as if there is a shortage of trains and stations!

We have a HUGE infrastructure that is in need of more $$ for repair than most municipalities need to build an entirely new system!

As for the big developments, we do need a bit more, and we need a BIT of NIMBYism, but as it was also pointed out, we get a little carried away on both sides.

I am not at ALL of tearing down some of the classic brownstones in the village just because the "public" wants more glass houses, but at the same time "carousel" will only be missed by a few (Washington Street near Houston) and places close to "Don Hill" (By the Ear Inn) have never been noted for their architectural or civic importance (although some of the buildings going up are not exemplary samples of architectural achievement).

Off to another side topic. Tribecca was not popular because of it's architecture guys, it, and SOHO, were CHEAP PLACES TO LIVE in the city a while back, and the artists of the town moved in. The same thing is happening right now in a section of Jersey City.

You get enough artists in an area, it becomes chic, and ironically becomes too expensive for the artists, so they move out and the social elite move in, rennovate, and sell to places like Bebe and FCUK...... ;)

Ah well, I guess the bottom line ot this is that we do need more development, but we do not need to force it to be reactionary or we might lose some things we do not want to lose. Having a protest to save parkland is one thing, but protests to prevent a PATH train entrance for the Christopher Street station is rediculous.

Fabrizio

June 13th, 2005, 10:38 AM

212 said it best:

"The truly great thing New Yorkers have done in the past 15 years is restore the city's streetscape. All those parking lots and patches of dirt that are now storefronts, row houses, gardens ... the once-scary neighborhoods that are now vibrant day and night ... that's a much bigger deal than any single megaproject."

I have a feeling a lot of you are very young, and have no idea of what New York was like exactly 30 years ago. It really was the movie "Taxi Driver" and "Midnight Cowboy". That was the look and the feel of the city. There is a book that just came out, that deals with NY during the year 1977. I don´t have the name of it, but will post it. You´d all find it interesting and almost unbelievable.

When I came to NYC as a 20 year old in 1974, the first thing that struck me was how empty the city streets were! On a summer Sunday afternoon in Times Square, after the curtains rose, you could roll a bowling ball down B´way and hit no one. And there were only maybe 20 shows playing. The dining choices were all on the level of the Hawaii Kai, Nedicks, ZumZum, WeinerWorld, Arthur Treachers Fish and Chips, pizza by the slice or gyros. everything was filty dirty and run-down. There were no nice shops. There was Howards ´, were by now, fashion choices seemed to be designed only for the neighborhood pimps. You did not walk down 42nd between 8th and 9th. Bryant Park was off limits. You cannot image the homeless and the stench on the Public Library steps. 5th avenue was airline ticket offices, cheap electronic stores (even in the most prime stretches of the avenue ) and Senegalse men selling their wares. Yes there was Saks, Tiffany´s Bergdorfs, Bendels ...but just a handful of boutiques (and they were mostly on the level of Ted Lapidus and Roberta Di Camerino). Madison Ave above 60th had for rent signs in windows.... there was a Brew Burger, a Baskin Robbins... no joke. Yes, there were still some classy art galleries and small charming, family run shops, but it was not a very luxe place. Broadway from 55 to 57th still housed car dealerships. The upper west side was a dump... SRO´s and winos ruled. Maybe the ONLY area of the city that was nicer then, than it is today, is the Village. And Soho was fun and very genuine. The lower East side was fun but very dangerous... you have to remember that NYC was hitting 1,500 to 2000 murders a year. You didn´t even bother to report muggings. Mugging stories BTW, were the stuff of every dinner party. Central Park was an over-grown out-of-control mess. You did not go there alone. You did not go to the Bethesda fountain. Oh, and do you know, that in the mid 70´s, you could count the number of new buildings built after 1960 on the West Side of mid-town on one hand: the Astor building, the building were the National movie theatre is (was showing porno back then BTW), the building at B´way and 53rd, the Americana Hotel.... very, very few. I remember those hot empty afternoons... I remember seeing a big-deal re-release of "Gone With the Wind" (this was before VHS) at the long-gone Rivoli on B´way and there were exactly 3 of us in the theatre.

I know this is all a little rambling and disjointed....I can go on and on.... just multiply everything I´ve said by 100... that´s how bad it was. There are lots of things that I´ll miss: Manhattan was a place were you could move to at 20 years old, and get a waitering job and rent an apartment and still have enough money left over for HB Studios and voice lessons. It was creative and dangerous and crazy fun... boy was it fun... studio 54 pre-HIV fun. The city wasn´t about money and real estate or trendy restaurants and hotels. My worry is that Manhattan will just completely lose it´s edge... and become a big expensive version of every other American city.

So in 30 years NYC has miraculously renewed and reinvented it´s self. And yes: "with out those mega projects..."

As for Dubai and all those other exotic places with the "World´s Tallest Building for 15 minutes". Who cares? These are places were the opinions of the populace mean n o t h i n g. And most of these buildings are not woven into a city fabric. They´re stand-alone islands mostly along highways... they´re building "skylines"... not cities. Big difference.

JMGarcia

June 13th, 2005, 11:46 AM

Manhattan has been wonderful at doing infill projects and the recent leadership has "cleaned up" the streets turning them into a great urban experience.

But, there is a difference between a "world's tallest building" or a huge pre-planned business center and the infrastructure mega-projects that NY really needs and these are the ones not getting done.

The subway has not been significantly expanded since the 40's. Commuter rail to the immediate region (where the huge bulk of the population growth has been and will continue to be) has continued to decline and the capacity for freight traffic is woefully inadequate.

Because of this huge lack of investment in infrastucture, job growth of the periphery continues to out preform the center. Long term, this is bad for the city, the environment and its residents. The poorest being particularly hard hit.

NYers can be so parochial at times singing their own praises its laughable. London, Paris, Tokyo and a host of other "mature" cities have all managed to build the mega-projects they need while NY languishes, resting on its inadequate and poorly maintained 1940's infrastucture.

Fabrizio

June 13th, 2005, 11:57 AM

Let´s remember though that London, Tokyo and Paris are all capitals of their respective countries.

Also: Americans just don´t like cities. Especially since after WWII. They don´t regard cities the way other populations do. The American dream is suburbia. And up until not too long ago, NY was a national joke... it was hated ... the famous headline: Ford to city "Drop dead".

ZippyTheChimp

June 13th, 2005, 12:08 PM

The conversation always seems to get back to skyscrapers, but they are not projects at all, at least not what is addressed in the article. Skyscrapers are just big buildings, and the difficulties in getting them built is a separate issue.

The Jets stadium debacle, which obviously influenced the writing, is such a project. However, it would be a mistake to assume that this project didn't get done because of community opposition alone. This is not the 1950s world of Robert Moses. There are tough environmental laws, and people now have a greater voice. To get projects built, the city and state have to engage the public, build a consensus, and make concessions. This was expertly done in the case of the water filtration plant in the Bronx, which was opposed by the local community. In the end, the public value of the project was realized, and the Bronx got budget money for parkland.

The West side railyards still merit consideration as a project. Although the Jets haven't yet, the mayor seems to have been able to put this saga behind him, and move on. Ironically, if a package of proposals was put forth along with the stadium, the dislike for it would have made some gravitate to another plan that they might ordinarily oppose.

Much of the difficulty in getting public-works projects off the ground is government inertia. A true mega-project in Brooklyn is the proposed Gowanus Tunnel, which the communities involved actually support. Yet this has languished for years, to the point where the elevated Gowanus Expwy has been getting $300 million in emergency repairs so it doesn't fall apart.

The important projects, such as mass transit access to the airports and the SAS, are not getting done. At least there are concrete plans now. In the 1970s, although the need was already evident, no one gave them any serious consideration.

A point about the post by Fabrizio: No matter what you may have read about it, unless you have experienced the New york City of the 70s, you can't possibly understand how much the city has changed in the last 30 years. Numbers just don't convey the emotional impact. It was so different, that at some level, I am nostalgic about it. Driving to work and parking anywhere in Pre-Tribeca (in a shitmobile, in case it got stolen). Going to parties in the LES carrying a loaded gun. Getting mugged late at night at the Clark St IRT station, and after discovering that the stupid kid didn't have a weapon, almost becoming a murderer.

Right now the city, although it has tough problems, is the best I have seen it in my entire life - most of it attributed to the rebirth of its neighborhoods and access to the waterfront.

alex ballard

June 13th, 2005, 12:23 PM

Again, moderation, moderation, moderation, moderation.

There should be guidelines to what's historical and what's not. People need to priotitze what the cost is to a community by saying "no".

The fact is, this marxist attitude shown by the few Manhattan reisdents who hold up these things is in the end going to kill them more than the developer. Mr Trump can simply move on to London if it gets to hard for him to build here. A brownstone can't do that, and therefore we're back to the 70's of deacy and decline.

Think about that.

ZippyTheChimp

June 13th, 2005, 12:30 PM

I thought we were talking about the city completing public-works projects, not a developer putting up buildings. In fact,there is more building going on now in the city than at any time in the last 30 years.

ManhattanKnight

June 13th, 2005, 12:31 PM

Right now the city, although it has tough problems, is the best I have seen it in my entire life - most of it attributed to the rebirth of its neighborhoods and access to the waterfront.

I moved here the year after Zippy did (and spent about half my time here a few years earlier while doing grad. school in NJ) and second almost everything he's said on this topic. You really had to be here back then to appreciate how vastly this place has changed for the better. Anyone want to exchange memories of the Great Blackout of '77?

kz1000ps

June 13th, 2005, 12:35 PM

Great post Fabrizio. Although I have seen Taxi Driver many times, I can't lay claim to being alive then. You brought up an interesting point about New York becoming a bigger version of every other city, and this is something that I've picked up on too. Every city is turning to entertainment of the prim and packaged Las Vegas/Disney style to revive or create their downtowns (a la Dubai) and it's just creating as soulless of environments as any 30-year-old mall. When I visit NYC now, I steer CLEAR of Times Square, if not because of suffocating pedestrian traffic, then because nearly all the stores there are just glorified versions of what I have 20 minutes away from home.
Although in Boston for the time being, I live an hour from Saratoga Springs, upstate, and it's been interesting watching their main street, the whole town really, come back to life these past 5 years. So far gentrification has been kind, but Saratoga is certainly on the map of national retailers now - they almost got a GAP a few years back - and the current real estate market is certainly felt there.

So, not to derail this thread's tracks, but do I have a valid concern of entertainment/retail sameness creeping in all over? Is there serious disccussion of this anywhere? It seems to me Times Square should be found in, umm, Times Square, Las Vegas in Las Vegas.....

debris

June 13th, 2005, 12:41 PM

I'm an economist (OK, a PhD student), and I've given a lot of thought to this. What everyone is describing is called the "collective action" problem. The benefits of mega-projects tend to be diffuse, spread out over millions of New Yorkers so that everyone benefits a little bit, while the harm is concentrated on a few agents. Let's pretend (I'm making these numbers up completely) that the Jets stadium would have given $200 million a year in economic activity to all New Yorkers, but would have cost $100 million a year to Madison Square Garden in termed of lost concert revenue, etc. Well, every New Yorker, if they took time to calculate the effects, would see they stand to benefit $2.50 a year, and that the cost-benefit calculation ($200 million - $100 million) is positive for the city. So in theory everyone should be in favor except MSG. But MSG stands to lose far more than a typical NYer, so they fight harder to stop the project. The trappings of our democracy (EIS, courts, media, etc.) are designed to promote the will of the majority as well as protect the interests of the minority, but in reality, are only effective in the latter. So we end up with nothing.

I was neutral on the stadium issue, I made the numbers up as an example, don't debate me on this matter please.

There are myraid examples of the "collective action" problem in NY:

1. Any eminient domain proceeding in which minority interests (rent control, preservationists) have a stake: Whitney expansion, condemnation for the SAS, etc.

2. Zoning laws. This is a great example. If we were allowed to build lots of luxury housing in, say, Hell's Kitchen, the increased supply would depress rents all across the city through simple supply and demand in the housing market. In other words, a luxury tower on 10th avenue will depress rents in the Bronx by 0.2 cents a month, or whatever. Build enough of these (and I mean tens of thousands of units), and upper middle class people will stop living in roach infested apartments in Morningside Heights, leaving those apartments for the working class. But the current tenants in Hell's Kitchen (the minority interest in this story), have a vested interest to stop luxury tower development, because in the short term, it will attract yuppies to their neighborhood and raise rents *only in Hell's Kitchen* (even while lowering rents incrementally everywhere else). So they fight the developments, which pushes yuppies into genuinely working class neighborhoods like Astoria, Bed-Stuy, etc. Restrictive zoning laws end up pushing everyone but the rich out of Manhattan in the long term, and *this* is why low density areas like Soho are expensive. The same reason Short Hills, Manhassat, and Greenwich are expensive: exlusivity. Demand exceeds supply.

ZippyTheChimp

June 13th, 2005, 12:50 PM

Blackout of '77

I worked off-hours (noon to 8 I think) at the windowless AT&T building on Thomas St. It was a good deal, because telco has its own emergency power and the AC was on. I was driving the shitmobile (a Fiat 124 Spyder), and was parked in a lot across the street where the ugly Tribeca tower now stands. It was hot and I had the top down.

It was pitch black when I left, and I offered a co-worker a ride back to Brooklyn. The car was parked close to a white wall, and when I turned on the halogen lamps, at least 1 million cockroaches big enough to run in the Belmont scurried for cover.

The woman screamed, and we both jumped out of the car (remember, the top was down) and started to Mambo. It took about a half hour of shining a flashlight in the car and swatting with an old towel to convince her to get in.

The ride home was twitchy.

Fabrizio

June 13th, 2005, 12:52 PM

Ah 1977! The black-out, thousands arrested, 104 degree heat, "the Son-of Sam", Star Wars, Annie Hall, "I love NY", Yankees beat the Dodgers, Koch elected, Donna Summer, Studio 54..... I can almost smell the poppers....

debris

June 13th, 2005, 12:53 PM

Oops, I meant that every NYer benefits $25.

Another theory in public finance economics is the "Coase Theorem". It basically states that whenever the market is operating inefficiently, there should be a way to make a deal (monetary compensation) so that all parties come out ahead. This is what *should* have been the case in the Trump Place saga. The area was zoned industrial (and the railyard was exposed), which was inefficient because it wasn't the "highest and best use" for the land, which was clearly residential + parkland, in terms of the tax base. So Trump said, "I stand to make X dollars from building here, let's split the profits halfway between myself and the community. I'll donate 50% of X dollars for building Riverside Park South, and everyone benefits."

This sharing of profits is called the Coase Theorem, and its the way to solve the collective action problem. Essentially, it means bribing the minority interests to go along with the plan (although UWS residents in this case do have a claim to some of Trump's profits). Often this is done under the rubric of "affordable housing": we'll support your plan if you give the community some bargain-priced apartments. I'm thinking here of the Atlantic Yards deal: Ratner has a deep understanding of the Coase theorem (even if he doesn't know it!) The Coase theorem says there is always a way to compromise, 100% of the time. But politics often gets in the way, and both sides try to renege on their part of the deal. This happened to some extent with Trump Place, and I fear it will be a problem for some time to come, until the public has a better understanding of the issues involved.

Fabrizio

June 13th, 2005, 04:08 PM

Teno

June 13th, 2005, 04:27 PM

kznyc2k : It is fascinating. EVERYONE here seems to say the same thing, "I avoid Times Square at all costs."
For all of those new shiny buildings, billions of dollars spent... it is a placethat New Yorkers AVOID.

That's because Times Square is fine if you have no where to be and just want to hang out. Or show family members visiting from out of town.

But on a daily basis Times Square is a hastle to deal with, and just easier to avoid when you need to go anywhere.

Clarknt67

June 13th, 2005, 06:59 PM

Initially I thought the end of the West Side Stadium was a bad sign for Ratner's Brooklyn Gehry stadium. I'm starting to think the backlash of disappointment might just push that project right through.

Clarknt67

June 13th, 2005, 07:19 PM

kznyc2k : It is fascinating. EVERYONE here seems to say the same thing, "I avoid Times Square at all costs."

For all of those new shiny buildings, billions of dollars spent... it is a place that New Yorkers AVOID.

Go figure.

Times Square is teeming with tourists walking very, very, very slowly with their necks craned back not looking where they're going.

New Yorkers avoid TS because we're busy and don't have the time to be held up.

Avoiding TS is no evidence of a urban aversion.

Fabrizio

June 13th, 2005, 08:00 PM

But consider what kznyc says: "I steer CLEAR of Times Square, if not because of suffocating pedestrian traffic, then because nearly all the stores there are just glorified versions of what I have 20 minutes away from home".

In decades past Times Square offered people something they couldn´t easily get at home: not just the grand movie palaces, the theatre and the bright lights but also burlesque, prostitution, peep shows, hustlers, ... you went there because you definately weren´t in Kansas anymore. People are not as innocent today, and believe me....I don´t want the scary Times Square that I remember from my younger days to make a come-back, but there sure was something about it´s gritty Damon Runyon-to-Taxi Driver character, that was alluring. The Times Square of today, for me personally, has zero appeal. But I wonder, in the end, if it could have been redeveloped in any other way. Times change.

kz1000ps

June 13th, 2005, 10:05 PM

In decades past Times Square offered people something they couldn´t easily get at home: not just the grand movie palaces, the theatre and the bright lights but also burlesque, prostitution, peep shows, hustlers, ... you went there because you definately weren´t in Kansas anymore................... But I wonder, in the end, if it could have been redeveloped in any other way. Times change.

Yes, and sadly I think that answers my question earlier, that being what effect having the same stores in downtowns across the country will have. I love a lot of the new Times Square towers and will always come back just to see that the place is still there. But other than my desires to see good architecture/urban environments or possibly just be in the midst of a lot of people, I no longer have a reason to go there or any other place that has remade itself, unless I specifically need something from one of those stores. And since most downtowns' retail districts comprise of a much much larger area of space percentage-wise than Times Square, it would make it that much more difficult to avoid the tourists, and that more of an aversion. Yes more revenue is generated so the city can further thrive, but all of the sudden going to any downtown just became that much more predictable and boring. But like Fabriz said, Times change, whatchagunnado.

212

June 14th, 2005, 07:03 AM

Right now the city, although it has tough problems, is the best I have seen it in my entire life - most of it attributed to the rebirth of its neighborhoods and access to the waterfront.

Like the great Hudson River Park! What a huge difference a little strip of green makes: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2893&page=1&pp=15&highlight=hudson+river+park.

And just imagine when we extend that bike path to circle Manhattan's waterfront ...

Teno

June 14th, 2005, 05:26 PM

BIG projects capture the headlines but, aside from the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, it's time to focus on smaller development opportunities.

In sum, the Next Big Thing may be a whole lot of little things - call it economic pointillism.

RICHARD D. PARSONS

I really agree with this comment. The small things are really what make the most impact and change on day to day life. It appears unfortunate they can easily get lost in the hyperbole eminating from the big things.

TLOZ Link5

June 14th, 2005, 07:55 PM

The reason nothing great has been built in NYC in recent years is not a lack of vision or ambition, its simply NIMBY's and a lack of foresight from the NYC political machine.

It could be a lot worse. We could be Buffalo.

I have a feeling a lot of you are very young, and have no idea of what New York was like exactly 30 years ago. It really was the movie "Taxi Driver" and "Midnight Cowboy". That was the look and the feel of the city. There is a book that just came out, that deals with NY during the year 1977. I don´t have the name of it, but will post it. You´d all find it interesting and almost unbelievable.

You're thinking of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning.

BrooklynRider

June 14th, 2005, 11:29 PM

Summer of '77 - I can't get the mother of Stacy Moskowitz out of my head - ever (and I was just a kid - 7th grade).

A couple of years later the movie "Times Square" came out. Anyone remember that? Featuring "I Want To Be Sedated" by the Ramones. Who knows who was in it, but does anyone remember the punk rock girl dressed inthe black trash bag performing a concert on top of the Selwyn Theater (I believe) on 42nd Street. Now, THAT was of a time.

"The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3" was from that time too.

I remember the green and white police cars. And those humongo gypsy cabs (when did they disappear).

<stream of conscious thought..... "how off topic am I?"....end of thought>

elfgam

June 15th, 2005, 12:08 PM

I'm an architect/urban designer who grew up in the city (and it has come a LONG way) -- and most everyone makes valid points on this thread, which is one of the most fascinating on wired New York... but to keep things in perspective these are the 'mega-projects' that people are talking about now -- and you guys tell me if this is a bad thing...

TRANSIT
1. MTA 2nd avenue subway (anyone think this is a bad thing?)
We can't even build a 4-track express so we're building a 2-track local ONLY -- we all know the reason the subway is so succesful is because express trains allow neighborhoods further out easy access into the city core. Also, the 2nd avenue subway is through built-up manattan only -- not benefitting the areas w/ the most growth potential: the entire Bronx, waterfront brooklyn, queens, and the L.L.E.S. of manhattan. Also built in phases such that harlem may not get a subway until 2020.

2. Fulton Street transit center (is this a bad thing?)
Already a year behind schedule and the size is being reduced by close to 50%.

3. Southferry Station (is this a bad thing?)
Also falling behind schedule...

4. 7-train extension (is this a bad thing?)
Might not happen, even though west-side needs it regardless of stadium.

5. New NJ transit Tunnel to Penn Station (is this a bad thing?)

6. New Penn-Moynihan Station (is this a bad thing?)

7. LIRR East-Side access into GCT (is this a bad thing?)

8. JFK/Jamaica/Downtown rail-line (is this a bad thing?)

9. Atlantic Terminal (is this a bad thing?)
Even before ratner's intervention the grand train station for brooklyn was a hole in the ground, not a great terminal.

10. Tappan Zee Bridge reconstruction (is this a bad thing?)

11. Westchester/Rockland cross rail link (is this a bad thing?)

12. NY Cross Bay Freight Rail Tunnel (is this a bad thing?)

13. Bus Rapid Transit System (is this a bad thing?)
BRT is a system of dedicated stations and lanes (and even streets, underpasses, etc.) that allows busses to run at near subway speeds. Speaking of which -- what happened to all the talk of bringing back trolleys? London has done this very succesfully in outer-borough low-density areas.

14. LaGuardia rail connecton via N train (is this a bad thing?)

15. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Extension (is this a bad thing?)
This recently looks like its going to get killed... because you know, expanding the highways is always a Jersey priority.

16. Expanded regional ferry system (is this a bad thing?)
There was talk of placing ferry terminals up and down hudson/harlem/east river and Long Island Sound of queens -- easy cheap way to expand transit to waterfront (i.e. redeveloping) areas.

CULTURAL
17. Brooklyn Arts Library by Enrique Norten (is this a bad thing?)

18. Lincoln Center Renovation (is this a bad thing?)

19. Whitney Expansion (is this a bad thing?)

20. Downtown Guggenheim (is this a bad thing?)

21. Columbia Expansion into Morningside Valley (is this a bad thing?)

RECREATION
22. Manhattan Bike Trail (is this a bad thing?)
Still has holes, and no plans to finish until 2010, earliest.

23. Brooklyn Bridge Park (is this a bad thing?)

24. Harlem River Park (is this a bad thing?)

25. 125 Street Park on the hudson (is this a bad thing?)

26. FDR Drive East River park (is this a bad thing?)
This one looks like it could go forward, but past history being any guide...

27. Fresh Kills Park (is this a bad thing?)
A budget to BUILD that is equal to Central Parks maintenance budget... no wonder they think this won't be done until almost 2050.

28. High-Line Park (is this a bad thing?)
Who's going to pay for it... though this does look like it will happen.

OTHER
29. WTC! (is this a bad thing?)
Four years and counting...

30. UN Renovations/Expansion (is this a bad thing?)
If you think it is a bad thing you should leave NYC right now -- I hear Albany and Troy are nice this time of year...

31. Governers Island (is this a bad thing?)
This could be anything -- park, offices, university, SOMETHING.

32. Queens West (is this a bad thing?)
Again... instead of looking like houston, this could be a 21st century Rockefeller Center/Battery Park City... there is no brownstone context to speak of... this would be the ideal place to think/act big.

33. Brooklyn Deep Draft Container Port (is this a bad thing?)
NJ port can't take deep draft ships... Brooklyn doesn't have room for thousands of small ships, just a few big ones. When will the city and the PA realize the NJ port and Brooklyn port are COMPLIMENTARY and both necessary?

34. Wireless City (is this a bad thing?)
There was talk about making NYC first fully wireless city... which would be a great 'infrastructural development' and offer a lot of opportunties for economic expansion.

35. Power grid expansion (is this a bad thing?)
We are still an appendix to the power grid serviced by something like only two main-lines... take a guess as to why that's a bad thing...

36. Power-plant expansion (is this a bad thing?)
Well maybe, but plentiful, reliable, ecologically sound electricity is a good and ESSENTIAL thing and just sitting around not building any power plants is a not a good solution, it's better to work pro-actively to find places to build high-tech safe power plants rather than just killing every idea that comes our way.

37. Water Tunnel 3 (is this a bad thing?)
People forget there are still two more entire PHASES to go. We're also supposed to start shutting down WT 1 and WT 2 to repair them.

38. Javits Convention Center (is this a bad thing?)
Let's not forget, no-one was against this... it still should happen... but all of a sudden no-one is talking about it.

There are probably a lot more I need to think of, so please add them and lets keep this list up to date.

Also keep in mind all the projects we don't even think about, because these other projects still need to get done -- for example, the queens subway system hasn't been expanded for 50 years, except for the spur to Roosevelt Island, which took 20 years longer than it was supposed to. No-one is talking about adding lines to Queens, because we still need to do so many other subway projects... but with places like Flushing and Forest hills taking off, the borough really needs extra capacity.

The thing people need to keep in mind is that there is a difference between mega-DEVELOPMENTS and mega-PROJECTS. A trump clump is not a mega-project that facilitates anything else -- it is the result of mega-projects like highways and subways and parks that allow it to be built. All the brownstone neighborhoods etc. existed because NY in its earlier history built bigger, more, and better mega-projects than anyone else in the North East, and the world. This resulted in massive economic development -- making NY the dynamo that powers America (to this day). It is this energy, the result of a vibrant economy, which was the result of vibrant infrastructure, that attracted people. It is our cultural and recreational infrastructure that made people stay and gave them a civic pride to build, privately, neighborhoods like the West Village and things like the Empire State Building.

Furthermore, the beautiful neighborhoods in the outer-boroughs, like Bay Ridge, etc. were often built up by the the guys earning good wages building the subways, the Verrazano, etc. The reason the city was able to recover from the 70s was because all the right infrastructures were in place. Unlike Philly or Detroit, we have the quality of life and infrastructural assets that make us work.

In order to compete against London (which is massively expanding its infrastructures, it CBDs, its schools, and its control of its metropolitan area), Berlin (same), Tokyo (same), Hong Kong (same), Shanghai (same), and even places like LA (same), New York needs to not think about RETENTION (i.e. renovation), but about EXPANSION.

Ninjahedge

June 15th, 2005, 12:39 PM

Interesting points, but we got the point the first time you said "(is this a bad thing)"

;)

kliq6

June 15th, 2005, 02:07 PM

elfgam

38. Javits Convention Center (is this a bad thing?)
Let's not forget, no-one was against this... it still should happen... but all of a sudden no-one is talking about it.

This is one of the few on th elsit that is happening, the request for construction proposals has been sent out and this should start in August

antinimby

June 15th, 2005, 02:12 PM

In order to compete against London (which is massively expanding its infrastructures, it CBDs, its schools, and its control of its metropolitan area), Berlin (same), Tokyo (same), Hong Kong (same), Shanghai (same), and even places like LA (same), New York needs to not think about RETENTION (i.e. renovation), but about EXPANSION. Yes, that is all true but we have one BIG problem: NIMBY's. They are more virulent and absurd than those that may be found in those other cities. As soon as anything is proposed to get built, renovated, expanded, moved, restructured, etc., the NIMBY's cry that it will cause congestion, change the character of the neighborhood, pollution, negative environmental impact, construction delays/detour, crime, safety, noise, blocking sunlight, helping the rich, depleting the ozone layer and what have you. Instead, they will say money should be spent on more parks, schools, housing for the homeless and the poor, wildlife santuaries, etc. Big projects always have to face these hurdles, so they get whittled down, postponed or just cancelled.

Ninjahedge

June 15th, 2005, 02:17 PM

antinimby

June 15th, 2005, 02:20 PM

I take it you do not like NIMBYs? What's my name? ;)

Ninjahedge

June 15th, 2005, 02:56 PM

What's my name? ;)

Who's your daddy?

But that is something for another thread...... ;)

ZippyTheChimp

June 15th, 2005, 03:03 PM

Yes, that is all true but we have one BIG problem: NIMBY's. They are more virulent and absurd than those that may be found in those other cities. As soon as anything is proposed to get built, renovated, expanded, moved, restructured, etc., the NIMBY's cry that it will cause congestion, change the character of the neighborhood, pollution, negative environmental impact, construction delays/detour, crime, safety, noise, blocking sunlight, helping the rich, depleting the ozone layer and what have you. Instead, they will say money should be spent on more parks, schools, housing for the homeless and the poor, wildlife santuaries, etc. Big projects always have to face these hurdles, so they get whittled down, postponed or just cancelled.
NIMBYs are a problem, but the types of projects Elfgam is talking about are not cancelled by NIMBYS. They are resisted, but rarely stopped. People whined about the proposed stations on the SAS, but it has been delayed by the MTA.

Ditto the Fulton Transit Center has been scaled back by budget
problems.

No one has protested the New Penn Station. How many years now?

I don't remember anyone trying to stop JFK rail access, but after decades of waiting while other cities have done it - where is it?

JMGarcia

June 15th, 2005, 04:11 PM

elfgam

June 15th, 2005, 04:40 PM

NIMBYs are a problem, but the types of projects Elfgam is talking about are not cancelled by NIMBYS. They are resisted, but rarely stopped. People whined about the proposed stations on the SAS, but it has been delayed by the MTA.

Ditto the Fulton Transit Center has been scaled back by budget
problems.

No one has protested the New Penn Station. How many years now?

I don't remember anyone trying to stop JFK rail access, but after decades of waiting while other cities have done it - where is it?

That was a lot of typing, but this is an issue a care about... :-) i'm glad someone noticed... ha ha.

The thing is that NIMBY's and they're success are not a problem, but a symptom of a problem which is inneffective and poor government and a city that lacks direction.

The NYTIMES arcticle blasted papers for giving extra space to the whiners and complainers versus those who pitch the project, even if the NIMBY's total only 60 people... but then in this same issue, the NYT went on to quote all these people against the ratner development even though almost everyone, in all classes, races, professions, etc. is for it. The whole discourse of the city has changed such that 'community' and 'development' have become opposites -- as if they could not be the same thing.

The city, state, PA, and MTA are inefficient and ineffectual. They lack vision, drive and proper planning. It's these cracks that allow the NIMBY backlash to thrive -- everytime a new project is pitched it's 1/2 baked (because everyone expects it to be changed), and everyone pitching it is already apologetic as if the project were a necessary evil instead of a shining investment (ditto for the GCT rail link, etc. where they typically talk about how few people are displaced... as if losing one shack on the edge of sunnyside rail yards was a loss). If you are already back on your heels, one concerted campaign will tip you over.

The MTA is corrupt (their downtown office renovation a year ago went something liek 200% over budget and was unfinished before they realized that the entire renovation was done through mob connections).

The city needs someone or some people who has the drive and power of Robert Moses without the pig-headedness -- Silver is powerful enough to be that -- yet he is dead set in being an impediment instead of a driver. Ditto to Pataki.

JMGarcia

June 15th, 2005, 05:29 PM

It is politically more profitable being an impediment to change in the current culture. Politicians ultimately do whatever is best for themselves in the current culture. Hence, there is zero political will to get anything done.

Even when presented with a scenario where it is politically more profitable to build something (the WTC), the system is so set up for things not to happen that it is still difficult to move forward.

That about sums it up IMO.

ZippyTheChimp

June 15th, 2005, 05:55 PM

Fabrizio

June 15th, 2005, 06:03 PM

JMGarcia

June 15th, 2005, 06:20 PM

Typically today - and this is not just in government, but pervades the business world- large scale decisions are made by committee. This is not necessarily because it is more efficient, but it insulates the committee members from individual blame if things go wrong. So the culture is already slanted toward the possibility of failure.

I suppose a lot of that has to do with people increasingly seeking to place blame (and the associated lawsuit) on someone or something for just about anything that happens.

elfgam

June 15th, 2005, 06:23 PM

Just for clarity:

I would like to know: of that list of projects (1-38) , how many (and which ones) were stoppedy by NIMBY´s... and of those: were NIMBY´s the only factor? Or were there other factors at play as well?

Fabrizio: in many of these projects its not the NIMBY's doing the killing -- it's the whole climate of inertia and inactivity that does that... the NIMBY's are just a part of that. The system right now is stacked to prevent Robert Moses type people from doing Robert Moses type things... as a result even when everyone wants something to happen (i.e. Moynihan Penn Station) it doesn't because building big has been made to complex.

Fabrizio

June 15th, 2005, 06:41 PM

Elf: your other post puts the blame squarely on the NIMBY´s :

"Yes, that is all true but we have one BIG problem: NIMBY's. They are more virulent and absurd than those that may be found in those other cities. As soon as anything is proposed to get built, renovated, expanded, moved, restructured, etc., the NIMBY's cry that it will cause congestion, change the character of the neighborhood, pollution, negative environmental impact, construction delays/detour, crime, safety, noise, blocking sunlight, helping the rich, depleting the ozone layer and what have you. Instead, they will say money should be spent on more parks, schools, housing for the homeless and the poor, wildlife santuaries, etc. Big projects always have to face these hurdles, so they get whittled down, postponed or just cancelled".

Yet now you are saying:

"...in many of these projects its not the NIMBY's doing the killing -- it's the whole climate of inertia and inactivity that does that... the NIMBY's are just a part of that. The system right now is stacked to prevent Robert Moses type people from doing Robert Moses type things... as a result even when everyone wants something to happen (i.e. Moynihan Penn Station) it doesn't because building big has been made to complex."

Ninjahedge

June 15th, 2005, 07:07 PM

Fab, that was Antinimby in your first quote there, the two are different peeps.

Fabrizio

June 15th, 2005, 07:11 PM

Nina : I see my mistake. Thanks for pointing it out. My apologies to both.

Jasonik

June 15th, 2005, 07:33 PM

alex ballard

June 16th, 2005, 11:23 AM

Maybe there should be a NIMBY regualtion board that works like this:

Let's say Bob doesn't like a building project becasue he doesn't like the type of brick it's using. So, he lies and says it will kill little duckies that don't even live there. The board takes the compliant and then determines it's not valid and throws it out. If something does turn up vaild, then it is told to the developer and then changes are made accordingly.

The panel consists of a architectural, enviormental, and communtiy imapct team. If everything appears fine, then the project contines uninterrupted. If people cause a distrubance, the NYPD with very hard nightsticks take over...

Of course, I don't get why politicans don't take money from the developers and buisness people. Then they'red be no cost overruns and NIMBYs! :D

czsz

June 17th, 2005, 12:13 AM

How does one assess the objective truth of such claims as "it will ruin the character of the neighbourhood"? And are such claims not valid?

pianoman11686

June 17th, 2005, 12:24 AM

There is no such thing as objective truth in this case. It's a singular view by a group of people who are anti-change and anti-development, no matter how much it would benefit or damage a neighborhood. They don't seem to realize that by living in such a modern city as New York, evolution is not only inevitable but necessary. If they prefer to live in a place that never changes and will remain the same forever, why don't they move to Machu Picchu or Ancient Greece.

czsz

June 17th, 2005, 12:50 AM

That seems like a highly generalised viewpoint. "Evolution" of the city is certainly necessary, but even the preservationists of lone rowhouses make a decent point about a "death by a thousand cuts"...drastic change on a citywide level can be achieved via a multitude of minute alterations.

pianoman11686

June 17th, 2005, 01:02 AM

I have nothing against preserving things of historic value. Structures that are classified as "historic" shouldn't be destroyed and made way for new buildings because their age is an untangible asset that can't be transferred to something else. However, defending the destruction of an old, run-down building that adds nothing to a neighborhood, and in fact, detracts from it by decreasing property values, should never be valued over a more modern replacement. Nor should people protest the development of private land, as in the case of Fordham University or the railyards. Because space is so limited in Manhattan, desolate and empty areas should and need to be developed so that the city doesn't stagnate.

JMGarcia

June 17th, 2005, 01:07 AM

The definition of "historic" now just seems to mean "old". The proper balance has not really been found yet between preservation and advancement IMO.

Unfortunately, preservation has become a political tool used to fight other battles going on in many cases.

pianoman11686

June 17th, 2005, 01:21 AM

JMGarcia

June 17th, 2005, 09:59 AM

True, but there was also a lot of worthless architecture built in the 1800's with no significance which is often zealously protected not for itself but rather to prevent something else.

alex ballard

June 17th, 2005, 10:46 AM

ZippyTheChimp

June 17th, 2005, 11:00 AM

There is more building going on in Manhattan now than at any time in the last 30 years.

BrooklynRider

June 17th, 2005, 11:19 AM

While the line is blurred in many cases, there is, for the most part, a pretty easy way to determine if something is historic enough to be preserved, and not simply an old structure. Take for example Central Park West. I don't think a developer will ever be able to bulldoze some of the classical turn of the century buildings such as the Dakota or the Beresford in the interest of building a modern highrise with higher views of Central Park. Simply too many people would be outraged, and the city would lose part of its unique character. A relevant example of this is 255 Central Park West, where a developer who purchased the parcel where the rundown former mental hospital was chose to preserve and renovate the historic structure, in addition to building a modern building behind it. Then, you have structures in neighborhoods like Midtown South and the Far West Side - old, brick buildings built over the past 70 years that have no architectural quality, no kind of historic significance, and no discernible benefit to the neighborhood. Demolition of these to make way for newer buildings is hardly ever questioned by people who want to preserve, because, frankly, there is nothing worth preserving.

I think there can be tremendous benefit to a neighborhood by preserving seemingly "insignificant buildings". As a counter-example, look at River Lofts in Tribeca, where community groups demanded and won the preservation (not "landmarking") of an old and pretty "insignificant" and "run-down" warehouse building, which the developer was obligated to work into the new construction design. It worked very well, certainly better than a "new" building would have on the same lot. Broad definitions of these things don't work and each building and site most be examined in context.

alex ballard

June 17th, 2005, 11:24 AM

How about a compromise? Build open space into the plan and/or preserve structures. But in return, the developer can build as big and as much as he wants. Perfect?

czsz

June 17th, 2005, 02:37 PM

At issue is the potentiality of historic structures. As many have pointed out here, Soho was a decayed wreck at midcentury, yet has since revived handsomely. Why should the "run-down" be targeted immediately for demolition rather than restoration?

Given the number of one-story taxpayer buildings and vacant lots still remaining in Manhattan, particularly on the Far West Side, demolition of 19th century architecture should hardly be a priority whilst encouraging economic development.

Ninjahedge

June 17th, 2005, 03:53 PM

I think the key is moderation. Before, it was build, build, build. Now it's stop, stop, stop. Eventually, a middle ground is reached.

Everything goes in cycles. Right now, the Outer boroughs are having a building boom. Maybe it will be Manhattan next time.

I say it's time for more zoning changes to allow for more buidling. I say bring back 1916 without the setback requirement.

No setback requirement?

Werent you the same one that was saying something about having trees and such downtown? You know why they probably will never have that? There is very little setback for some VERY LARGE buildings. There is no sunlight that reaches the buildings, and in some of the older regions there is very little room to even walk down the street.

Removing setback limitations is not a smart idea, unless you want an Asimov-like city of New York where you never really get to see the real sky...

pianoman11686

June 17th, 2005, 11:29 PM

I think there can be tremendous benefit to a neighborhood by preserving seemingly "insignificant buildings". As a counter-example, look at River Lofts in Tribeca, where community groups demanded and won the preservation (not "landmarking") of an old and pretty "insignificant" and "run-down" warehouse building, which the developer was obligated to work into the new construction design. It worked very well, certainly better than a "new" building would have on the same lot. Broad definitions of these things don't work and each building and site most be examined in context.

Of course broad definitions can't be applied to every example. I'm not suggesting that we bulldoze every single old building just because it's old and can be replaced with something newer that uses up all the air-rights. I certainly don't want to see New York become completely covered with high rises. That would make it lose its character. Nor should neighborhoods that are completely covered in 5-story buildings be subject to a new mega development that will include several 60-story buildings. I feel that every developer should build within the context of a neighborhood, and that will prevent things like tearing down the Dakota or a row of old townhouses on the Upper East Side to make way for a gigantic glass skyscraper. On the flip side, it allows the recladding of 2 Columbus Circle to make it look more pleasing to the eye, and the demolition of old, crumbly brick buildings in Midtown and Midtown South that will allow for new buildings like One Bryant Park, which certainly won't "ruin the fabric of the neighborhood." So, in conclusion, although you may think of me as one of those moral relativists, in the end, I guess I am. I'd like to be able to abide by a general rule, but in the end, I agree: a lot of individual examples have to dealt with, well, individually.

BrooklynRider

June 20th, 2005, 10:13 AM

...So, in conclusion, although you may think of me as one of those moral relativists, in the end, I guess I am. I'd like to be able to abide by a general rule, but in the end, I agree: a lot of individual examples have to dealt with, well, individually.

Actually, I think we are pretty much in full agreement.

antinimby

June 20th, 2005, 01:17 PM

Removing setback limitations is not a smart idea, unless you want an Asimov-like city of New York where you never really get to see the real sky... "Never is a mighty long time." Plenty of places with no highrises, even in Manhattan. Then you can stare :eek: into the sky for as long as you want.

czsz

June 20th, 2005, 02:05 PM

alex ballard

June 20th, 2005, 05:54 PM

Nothing is too precious to prevent the thicketing of Manhattan's skies! Ignore the realities of economic demand, dismiss any concern over quality of life as "rampant NIMBYism" (as if that were a rational critique) and charge those who question the progress of incessant construction of anything with responsibility for future stagnation. Skyscrapers! Now! And everywhere!

Bloody blinded by the height.

Are you paraliyzed? Can you not move? Becasue if you can, I suggest you do.

You hate NY and all it stands for. Heck, I think you hate capitalism too.

China is waiting for you.

Ninjahedge

June 20th, 2005, 06:29 PM

Are you paraliyzed? Can you not move? Becasue if you can, I suggest you do.

You hate NY and all it stands for. Heck, I think you hate capitalism too.

China is waiting for you.

Um, what was that Alex?

That has nothing to do with the topic and it is a personal attack.

Please stop now.

Edward

June 20th, 2005, 06:41 PM

Are you paraliyzed? Can you not move? ...
Ninjahedge is absolutely right. Alex, this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

pianoman11686

June 21st, 2005, 01:35 AM

I'd just like to add my two cents here: while in other forums dealing with a similar subject, I've had my share of disagreements with czsz. We've talked at length about the merits of preservation vs. the necessity and inevitability of progress, ie out with the old, in with the new. While it may be difficult for some of us to accept another person's contrasting views, it is nonetheless a reailty in any public forum, and I for one appreciate having dissenters to the predominant "build it big and build it now" sentiments that seem to dominate many threads. I, too, used to consider myself a follower of this idea, but I realize it is a rather impatient stance to take towards a city like New York. While I'm certainly still excited, and sometimes to the point where my breath is taken away, about a stunning new highrise going up in New York or somewhere else, it's not the only thing I consider. So, for the future, let's all have a more open mind when faced with opposing arguments, and remember that this isn't a place where people should feel insulted for contributing what they feel is valuable input. I for one can speak from certain experiences on the Orion thread and others.

P.S. - Alex, I wouldn't want to see you banned from this forum because I think you do contribute something unique to many threads. Try and restrain yourself when you're in the heat of the moment. I'm sure czsz doesn't hate NY, because if he did, he wouldn't be on this forum and he wouldn't be defending so much of what he loves about New York, though it may be different from what you and I love about it. And if he did hate it, he certainly wouldn't leave for China, which at this point is the epitome of huge, glimmering skyscraper projects that literally destroy entire neighborhoods in the cities they end up dominating.

kz1000ps

June 21st, 2005, 02:33 AM

czsz

June 21st, 2005, 02:56 AM

Let Alex be, I don't take his whimsical, easily-provoked fits seriously enough to be anywhere near offended.

Perhaps, though, he can be branded with some sort of e-scarlet letter to warn others that he has difficulty approaching the sophistication of reasoned argument?

alex ballard

June 21st, 2005, 09:50 AM

I just got done writing in the other post and there's "capitalism" from Alex Ballard again. Alex, let me remind you - since at some point in your life you forgot - that capitalism is NOT AN END IN AND OF ITSELF. If it is then we would have been hoarded into 50 story tenements with no windows and minimal natural circulation 50 years ago. We all know what a "capitalist" would do, if that's what he MUST do to keep ahead of his competitor. To bottom line issues to the point of accusing them of hating New York is frightening. Do you love New York? Yes of course! Do you support the war in Iraq? Well, yeah! Are you patriotic? Uh huh! Are these questions incredibly vague and more then slightly driven by blind faith? I believe so.

I have an image of stomping on a scale, trying to get it to balance. That's what I am doing.

I never said buildings or captalism or whathaveyou be unregualted. I hate the Enrons, Bushes and Iraq War.

But also, I'm trying to look at NY's best interest. Cities that build are cities that grow and cities that grow are cities that stay on top.

See?

There really is a semi-anti-capitalist/anti-building/anti-profits faction here and I'm trying to tell you that while your intetnions are good, they're bad for NY.

If you want to see what happens to a city that stops growing, go to Detorit.

Ninjahedge

June 21st, 2005, 09:58 AM

Alex, the message here is not "anti-capitolisim", it is more on regulated development.

Buildings are going up faster now then they have been for the past 20 years, and saying that we have a chance to be like Detroit, the AUTOMOBILE manufacturing center, simply does not fit...

Also, the one thing that you keep ironically missing is that in order for some of these things to work, you have to have something that people want to use. You can build a whole crapload of new highrises in anticipation of new buisness coming in, but if they do not come in fast enough, you will get an overspending slump/correction that will have poor economic results.

IOW, overdevelopment, or poorly planned development, does not help growth no matter how much growth is desired.

Secondly, when you have a desire for something that is in short supply, people pay more for it. There is a balance point where the increase in cost to get the rare item balances out the additional money that would be made on a more widely, and resultingly cheaper commodity. A housing/office space glut would not help the bottom line in NYC....

So lets just see what happens, and try not to keep pushing for anything taller than it's neighbors without considering all the effected venues.

BrooklynRider

June 21st, 2005, 09:59 AM

Just throwing my usual two cents around...

I agree that I wouldn't want to see Alex banned over his passionate posting. I think the problem you are encountering is that the argument you are giving is predicated on people essentially agreeing with you. You're not walking us around it and showing it to us from the various perspectives possible. I feel, you keep makingthe same argument and, in so doing, you get the same reaction and response - which can seem almost non-responsive after time.

Dig deeper Alex. Your defining it in black and white, while everyone agrees there's a lot of gray area out there.

Fabrizio

June 21st, 2005, 10:40 AM

Alex: honestly, you just don´t know what you are talking about. You really must study the history of building development in NYC.... and get acquanted with the NYC of the last 35 years.

There is MORE building going on in NYC NOW (and in the last 5 years) than since the 60´s.

And that´s DESPITE all the NIMBY´s etc.

But BECAUSE of these NIMBY crazies ( and the enlightenment of the general population), the developers are also building some of the BEST, most interesting and sensitive architecture NYC has seen in a long, long time. (you REALLY don´t understand what dark years the 70´s and 80´s were).

OK? Got it? Is that clear?

As far as fears that NYC will go the way of Detroit: Brooklyn´s population will probably soon approach the HIGH of 1950 not to mention the repopulation of Harlem and so many other zones.

Another thing, isn´t it curious:

After NYC built the "world´s tallest building" in the early 1930´s it took another 40 years (!) to top it.... yet in the meantime the city grew, prospered and become a dominant cultural force in the world. During the city´s heyday (during the late 40´s through the 50´s , when no other city on the planet could compare to it) not ONE building was built approaching the height of the Empire State or the Chrysler building.

If building tall = prosperity, remember that the Empire and Chrysler were both planned on the eve of ....the depression.

Go figure.

alex ballard

June 21st, 2005, 11:51 AM

Well, you've all made some excellent points that I haven't really thought of before.

Remeber, I only can report on what I see. I see the building, but I also see the naysayers. Why does every single magazine list NY as "Bad for buisness", "Bad for living", "Too expensive", "Crime-ridden", blah, blah, blah.

Remember: It's not a personal thing. It's a skyscraper thing;).

I have strong feelings and I express them strongly. Sometimes I'm quiet, sometimes I'm loud. Hey, if you're against something, I don't hate you for it. I simply don't like your opinion.

NIMBY has a bad image. I've seen and heard some pretty racist/classist/marxist/anarchist reasoning for some actions. It's not pretty.

I don't think all people are like that, its that's who you see on TV. You never hear of common sense people willing to compromise, just the nutjobs like Silver, Charles Barron, PETA, and every other wacko.

ryan

June 21st, 2005, 12:16 PM

Remeber, I only can report on what I see. I see the building, but I also see the naysayers. Why does every single magazine list NY as "Bad for buisness", "Bad for living", "Too expensive", "Crime-ridden", blah, blah, blah.

Perhaps you should expand your reading. I recently read in forbes (a magazine I don't particularly enjoy) that large companies have offices in NYC because it is the only way for them to attract top talent. There is a class of employee who will only live in NYC, London, Paris, etc, and they are usually the ones running things

I've seen and heard some pretty racist/classist/marxist/anarchist reasoning for some actions. It's not pretty.

Sigh. you really do need to read up on subjects before posting. Equating classism with marxism and/or anarchy doesn't make any sense to me, as usually marxism is all about fighting classism or deconstructing class. If you're going to post this hyperbole, at least reason it out so it can be understood outside of your head. Unless you meant to use a comma to list different subjects...

alex ballard

June 21st, 2005, 12:19 PM

Note to self: Use commas.

You should check out "Skyscraperpage.com". They have a whole thread on this issue too. They're are some ugly things being quoted there...

ryan

June 21st, 2005, 12:24 PM

Note to self: Use commas.

You should check out "Skyscraperpage.com". They have a whole thread on this issue too. They're are some ugly things being quoted there...

I'm not interested in skyscraperpage, or that tone of discussion.

ZippyTheChimp

June 23rd, 2005, 08:01 PM

LEISURE & ARTS

The Planning Vacuum

New York stumbles into a good stadium deal.

BY ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE
Wednesday, June 22, 2005 12:01 a.m.

NEW YORK--This city, in its usual backhanded manner, has stumbled its way to the proper conclusion of the controversial Jets stadium saga. The stadium will not be built in Manhattan on the West Side waterfront; that was a terrible idea by any planning standards, an exercise in ego and hubris so inappropriate that even the familiar combination of money, power and politics could not push it through.

A new stadium will be built in Queens, close to other sports facilities--not for the Jets, but for the Mets, the somewhat surprising and unlikely beneficiaries of the need for a suitable stadium in New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics (if you hang around long enough, good things may happen). This is where common sense and good planning practice, both of which have been conspicuously lacking, would have put it in the first place.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/images/storyend_dingbat.gif

In a deal structured by the city and the MTA, the financially strapped agency that runs New York's public transportation system and is selling its surplus properties to meet its growing deficits, the Jets would have bought the abandoned Hudson Rail Yards on Manhattan's far West Side for a new football stadium. The argument went that this would jumpstart West Side development, create jobs, extend the usefulness of the existing, adjacent convention center, and deliver an Olympics-ready stadium. When the agreed-on price turned out to be far less than competitors for the site were willing to offer, bids were reopened. But the city would promise the necessary rezoning of the land for new construction only to the Jets, so the deal was still stacked in their favor. However, they were forced to raise their bid to win.

In spite of the Jets' relentlessly orchestrated publicity, featuring a steady parade of pliant politicians to the steps of City Hall, the scheme was never popular; to many New Yorkers it was the wrong building in the wrong place. There was considerable relief when the project was voted down by an obscure state financial review board that controlled its fate. But a stake has not yet been driven through the misconceived scheme's heart--either remarkably obtuse or tone deaf to the larger public issues, the Jets failed to get the message. They are seeking private financing to get this monstrous spoiler built anyway, regardless of an official veto and lost public subsidies or serious concerns about the misuse of the land.

A stadium should never--repeat, never--be built on the midtown Manhattan waterfront; this is a flagrant violation of everything we know about urban land use. It is axiomatic that you do not put industrial-size blockbusters in uniquely desirable locations; they destroy an enormous potential for profit and pleasure while denying access to one of the city's most valuable amenities. We are just beginning to see the results of the long and successful effort to reclaim the Hudson River waterfront for public use in the river-front gardens and promenades of Lower Manhattan and the tree- and rose-lined bicycle and running paths that have transformed the water's edge on West Street.

Located next to the convention center, the stadium would have doubled the mass and length of the huge bunker against the river already established by that "lump of black coal"--as essayist Phillip Lopate described its dark bulk in his literary trip around the edges of Manhattan--cutting off views and access with nearly a mile of hulking wall.

The myth that a stadium was needed to revitalize the West Side was a self-serving illusion; there was already clear evidence that development had started, with some of the newest and priciest architect-designed condominium towers moving uptown from their fashionable downtown base, and a surge in developer acquisitions in the area. The reality would have been horrendous traffic and transportation problems and the lifeless alienation of surrounding communities. With the independent announcement of plans for a new Yankee Stadium hot on the heels of the Mets' good fortune--some fancy sports economics is making new stadium construction highly profitable--we now have not one, but two stadiums, with no lack of potential jobs.

Under the totally changed conditions in which the inclusion of a stadium is no longer a required part of the purchase of the rail yards, the MTA can, and should, reopen the bids. There is now a level playing field (apologies for the sports metaphor) that would allow the badly underfunded transportation agency to take full advantage of the area's rapidly rising prices and explosive growth. Nor can the city continue to withhold the necessary rezoning previously promised only to the Jets and left hanging as an ambiguous risk factor for other contenders for the site. One would like to believe that someone has something better in mind this time around than this quixotic and opportunistic kind of unplanned land use and special-interest development.

Whether state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver doomed the West Side stadium out of political pique at mayoral neglect is beside the point. His justifiable concern that it would draw resources and commitment from his Lower Manhattan district and the rebuilding of Ground Zero highlighted the fact that there is something profoundly wrong with the city's planning policies.

To put it plainly: There are none; there are no land-use principles, no guiding priorities, no design guidelines where they are needed. Construction projects, often of enormous size and impact, are developer generated and initiated, within a narrow spectrum of private interest, and the bigger they are the better the city seems to like them.

Savvy developers know how to navigate the civic shoals with singular skill. Forest City Ratner, currently engaged in a vast project for the Atlantic Yards on the Brooklyn waterfront, which includes a basketball stadium for the Nets designed by Frank Gehry, has made token changes in cooperation with community representatives, although questions remain about densities and scale. There are builders who sugarcoat their proposals with big-name architects, irresistible bait in a city that shamefully settles for the ordinary. New York has never managed, as Chicago has, to make Donald Trump use a different architect in exchange for a prime site.

What happens is pure planning roulette, a free-for-all, ad hoc gamble on the future where real estate reigns with a divine right established by astronomical values. Local residents, businesses and civic organizations may dissent loudly and file delaying lawsuits. Some public interest groups volunteer studies and offer ameliorating solutions. The City Planning Department and the Municipal Art Society collaborated to upgrade the Jets' proposal with a more rational use of existing streets and facilities.

But the city's planning agencies are reduced to a subservient, reactive role. While a small trade-off may take place for a new subway entrance or refurbished park, Governor's Island, an enormous opportunity, has languished in picturesque desuetude since its transfer from the federal government in 2003. This is planning by default, or immobility, in which creative initiatives are not taken, and few professional or architectural values survive.

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This planning vacuum is at the root of the disaster at Ground Zero. The initial failure to find a way to take the land by eminent domain, the absence of the leadership that would have utilized all necessary and available means and sought others while the enormity of the attack was still fresh (was there ever a more justifiable public purpose?), threw the project into the hands of a commercial developer, sealing its fate. Sacred ground became real estate; forget civic, cultural or urban grandeur. What did not die in that trade-off was sabotaged by the political jockeying and pandering that followed as the World Trade Center site was turned into a giant memorial and bizarre pairing of art and patriotism, a place for political grandstanding while security fought architecture to a draw.

The vision, experience and conviction that turns blueprints into great cities while retaining the integrity of an idea and guiding essential changes through the intricacies of codes, zoning, market economics, popular expectations and procedural complexities is something for which politicians, businessmen and special interests are notoriously ill suited. There is no one at Ground Zero properly equipped or authorized to deal with a coordinated, conceptual rebuilding, to set the right priorities and make the right decisions. This kind of leadership has been supplanted by an ostensibly democratic process in which popular or political dictates have progressively undermined and degraded the principles and guidelines of the Libeskind plan supposedly guiding the rebuilding with every expedient, compromising, constituency-pleasing and ultimately destructive decision.

Is there hope? This is a city of eternal, last-ditch surprises. There is always hope that something will come out of this lost opportunity besides a necropolis with shops and offices, that someone will recognize its failure as a wretched political legacy. But priorities must change; the site must be treated as more than a giant mausoleum if we are to achieve a creative renewal that speaks to the living and the future. Then there may be some unexpected flashes of architectural beauty or urban richness or civic meaning to proclaim New York's survival.

Ms. Huxtable is The Wall Street Journal's architecture critic.

Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

kz1000ps

June 24th, 2005, 01:34 AM

I was very disappointed with Libeskind's op-ed piece - I felt it rather pointless other than to cover his butt and paint an "optimistic" picture - but this excellent work more than made up for my disappointment. Ms. Huxtable still knows how to transcend time and call things for what they are - biased. Although on the whole I think Bloomberg's planning initiatives will help the city, I don't think his obvious affection for bigger-is-better type developments is. I'm still mum on the Jets Stadium/NYSCC (whichever way you want to view it) issue, but generally I feel homogeny of companies/blocks seems to be the enemy to true urbanity. Regardless, going by the amount of construction in the city overall, I'd have to say it makes the question posed by the thread title a little frivolous. The WTC site is the obvious exception, but that's what you get with so many public, private, and personal entities involved. Again, Ms. Huxtable is still a force to be guided by.

alex ballard

June 24th, 2005, 09:27 AM

kz1000ps

June 24th, 2005, 01:14 PM

First, please don't make all-encompassing comments like "no one here gets so and so." My comment about the current state of construction in the city was in reference to all the housing units being built, so regardless of how I feel on that it's happening so oh well. Then again, I'm not sure I understand your point.

BrooklynRider

June 24th, 2005, 01:40 PM

How can you blame him? He's being attacked by everyone.

Anyway, about this "NIMBYism", no one here seems to get the fact that if you don't create new housing, the housing you do have ends up becoming too expensive. That will either turn the city into a rich enclave or ruin it do to cost of living.

If that's how you feel, then I hope it's the first, I really do.

The fault in your argument is that a lot of new housing has come on the market and is planned for the market, but prices and rents are not coming down or stabilizing. That argument which works in other cities, in my opinion, does not work in NYC, because this city attracts more than just metro area buyers. It is an international city and the trends here are driven as much by foreign exchange rates and too-hot-to-handle economies as it is by low interest rates.

If stuff comes on the market more affordably priced, the wealthier people still buy it up and return it to the market as exhorbitantly price rentals. I know it is unpopular here, but government must find a way to build and regulate housing to ensure that the middle class does not continue to get squeezed. We have luxury housing and low income housing being built. That is it. Market forces never work in the favor of the little guy, because the market is so easily manipulated and dominated by the big guys. The amount of new residential housing could be viewed as promising, but each new luxury hi-rise going up is eating away another site for realistically affordable housing for homes with an income of $50 - $150K / year.

The construction boom is fun to watch but I find it completely discouraging and I do not think it really bodes well for the future. The Orion thread is a good barometer of this (if one is to believe the posts there). You have all of these people buying Orion because it is "cheap" at $800 / sq ft and the majority buying as an "investment", not as a home. Unckecked capitalism is just as dangerous as any other "ism" we've been programmed to despise.

Oh gee... Time to duck.

Fire away....

JMGarcia

June 24th, 2005, 01:50 PM

The problem is that it is impossible to fit enough housing in Manhattan to meet demand long term. This will keep prices high. The only way to soften the prices even a little is to build enough in the outer-boroughs and make those neighborhoods desirable enough to reduce demand for Manhattan a little. This will require a concerted effort by the city and investment in amenities and transportation infrastructure in those outer-borough neighborhoods.

In other words, if you can't increase supply enough then decrease demand somewhat by offering alternatives.

Ultimately, the housing argument in Manhattan comes down to whether the city should spend tax money to provide lower cost housing in Manhattan than the market can provide versus the concept that its none of the governments business to provide a particular (economic) segment of the population with housing in an area that they otherwise could not afford.

Ninjahedge

June 24th, 2005, 02:29 PM

Agree with parts of both BR and JM's posts...

You have to network the boroughs in a bit better. Brooklyn Heights is awesome! I would love to live in a nice place there than even next to Central Park! But how much buisness does Brooklyn's Buisness District do?

Is it really too close to NYC to be considered as a serious location for any big buisness?

Is it too out of the way compared to manhattan?

Is it too EXPENSIVE compared to Manhattan in regards to what they both have to offer?

I think Jersey City has, and is continuing to cash in on the location, ease of commute of all the displaced suburbanites tired of a 90 minute commute, and the cost of manhattan. It is beginning to look almost as big as cities like Hartford!

NYC itself will not follow the same rules as the surrounding areas in that no matter how much you build, that will not be the determining factor in how much is bought. I think it will have more to do with the perceived ceiling for housing.

Real estate becomes a worthless comodity if the only people that are buying it are traders, not people looking for a place to live.

BrooklynRider

June 24th, 2005, 03:34 PM

JMG

That's pretty rational assessment.

However would you then argue that the Jets have no right building the stadium on the westside, if they can't afford the platform? Should we argue that the very recent rezoning of the far west side will CREATE a market unaffordable to the MAJORITY of city residents paying the taxes in NYC? Movies were affordable on 42nd Street before the "revitalization". Now it costs nearly double what it did before for a couple to attend the movies. The city seems to have created an unaffordable market there too.

The argument that people could not otherwise afford to live somewhere is not addressing the fact the affordability is often impacted by government policy. Government is funded by tax-payers. Tax-payers are now almost entirely represented by working class people as payroll taxes, under the Bush Administration, are the primary source of government funding. Zoning is of itself a list of restrictions placed by goverment on development. It is hard to defend the city "opening up" the Far West Side to development and giving up all of that valuable labnd to create another neighborhood of unaffordability.

This is not about the "market". This is public policy. Frankly, I don't think the "public" policy of this city is serving it very well. The majority of New Yorkers cannot afford these places. We have foreign investors and domestic investors coming in and driving up these prices. In my opinion, our policy is not in any way serving New Yorkers (other than to create more housekeeping and valet service jobs). The public policy is serving the "wealthy-at-large". Rezoning property almost specifically for high-rise luxury development is not in the public's interest and tossng in a park as a "community amenity" is not enough.

I think Bloomberg has a wonderful sense for market driven policy. That kind of policy lines the pockets of those that control the market. Prices are driven up by investors, who then flip units driving prices up even higher for citizens of the city. What seems to be suggested in your argument is that Manhattan has already been ceded to the super rich. I can't afford it because policy has ensured that I never can and never will, barring winning Lotto.

There has been a very clear and methodical approach toward undermining the middle class and I find it objectionable. The "market" has not priced me out of Manhattan, my elected officials have.

BrooklynRider

June 24th, 2005, 03:40 PM

Real estate becomes a worthless comodity if the only people that are buying it are traders, not people looking for a place to live.

Another quote for the ages. Brilliantly stated.

JMGarcia

June 24th, 2005, 04:46 PM

However would you then argue that the Jets have no right building the stadium on the westside, if they can't afford the platform?
I guess we will find out as the MTA sale is still an option for the Jets and the zoning for the stadium is still in place.

Should we argue that the very recent rezoning of the far west side will CREATE a market unaffordable to the MAJORITY of city residents paying the taxes in NYC?I believe the majority of city taxes comes through property taxes and sales rather than income taxes. The city can rezone land use. Should it also try to fight market forces by setting prices? Does the city only set prices for the end product (a habitable apartment) or does it need to set prices on construction costs, taxes paid by the developer, sales price of the current owner to the developer? Where does it stop?

Movies were affordable on 42nd Street before the "revitalization". Now it costs nearly double what it did before for a couple to attend the movies.The city's policy increased desirability of the area and now theaters can get away with higher prices. There is obviously enough people who are willing to pay these prices to go to a movie in Times Sq. Is it unalienable right for people to be able to go to a movie at a certain price in Times Sq.? Should the city set movie ticket prices or try to decrease the desirability of the area to lower prices? What would you suggest?

The argument that people could not otherwise afford to live somewhere is not addressing the fact the affordability is often impacted by government policy. Government is funded by tax-payers. Tax-payers are now almost entirely represented by working class people as payroll taxes, under the Bush Administration, are the primary source of government funding.Federal taxes don't play a part here so I'm not sure what you are getting at. Again, I think the bulk of revenue for the city is derived from property and sales taxes, not income taxes. In any case, local income taxes have nothing to do with the Feds. They are set locally. Bush's federal taxing policies may be a mess but its not really at issue here. I am not really sure what gov't policy(ies) exactly you think drives up prices in an area.

Zoning is of itself a list of restrictions placed by goverment on development. It is hard to defend the city "opening up" the Far West Side to development and giving up all of that valuable labnd to create another neighborhood of unaffordability.Should the city leave it zoned as non-residential so an expensive neighborhood is not created but rather left for what? How can the city zone land for residential but only at a certain end price to the resident?

This is not about the "market". This is public policy. Frankly, I don't think the "public" policy of this city is serving it very well. The majority of New Yorkers cannot afford these places. We have foreign investors and domestic investors coming in and driving up these prices. In my opinion, our policy is not in any way serving New Yorkers (other than to create more housekeeping and valet service jobs). The public policy is serving the "wealthy-at-large". Rezoning property almost specifically for high-rise luxury development is not in the public's interest and tossng in a park as a "community amenity" is not enough.I am interested to hear your suggestions as to what the city can do policy wise to change the market in Manhattan. What "public" policy that is currently in place has to be removed that is not serving the city well?

I think Bloomberg has a wonderful sense for market driven policy. That kind of policy lines the pockets of those that control the market. Prices are driven up by investors, who then flip units driving prices up even higher for citizens of the city. What seems to be suggested in your argument is that Manhattan has already been ceded to the super rich. I can't afford it because policy has ensured that I never can and never will, barring winning Lotto. Again, what policy can be instituted to keep property prices low in an area where the rich are willing to pay a premium.

It seems to me that there are huge amounts of people that want to live in Manhattan in every income bracket. The rich are willing to pay for it. Those who can't afford it want the city to somehow make it so they can afford it. Even if the city could (I don't see how they can) at what point do they choose to make it affordable for? $10,000 a year, $50,000?

BrooklynRider

June 24th, 2005, 10:43 PM

I believe the majority of city taxes comes through property taxes and sales rather than income taxes. The city can rezone land use. Should it also try to fight market forces by setting prices? Does the city only set prices for the end product (a habitable apartment) or does it need to set prices on construction costs, taxes paid by the developer, sales price of the current owner to the developer? Where does it stop?

I agree that the majority of revenues come from property taxes, paid by residential landlords and passed onto tenants.

I do not believe the city should or should not fight market forces. It has become increasingly apparent in this age of globalization that "market forces" are the euphemism for price gouging by conglomerates. "Market rates" are not some organic or naturally occuring phenomenom. I happen to believe the "free market" setting the rates is not so free and that the market is heavily manipulated. We can argue it until we're both blue in the face.

If we all agree that property taxes are the primary source of revenue, then the residents of this city are underwriting the corporations who are getting the major property tax breaks. I think this is leading to an argument about Eminent Domain abuse and the sinister use of rezoning to produce the same end.

The city's policy increased desirability of the area and now theaters can get away with higher prices. There is obviously enough people who are willing to pay these prices to go to a movie in Times Sq. Is it unalienable right for people to be able to go to a movie at a certain price in Times Sq.? Should the city set movie ticket prices or try to decrease the desirability of the area to lower prices? What would you suggest?

I am not talking about "rights". I am talking about the long-trm impact of policies on residents. We'll both agree that a great portion of WNY members have made statements that they avoid Times Square. So, do we argue that the city government successfully served the citizens, if they now avoid the area revitalized? It seems the city government is developing a city with the long-term goal of catering to visitors and foreigners prioritized over serving the interests of residents.

There are quality of life issues that Bloomberg and Giuliani both touted as being priority, but affordability is a quality of life that is ignored. To be clear, I am viewing "affordability" in terms of percentage of net income dedicated to housing, which, I think, most residents would argue is too high.

Federal taxes don't play a part here so I'm not sure what you are getting at. Again, I think the bulk of revenue for the city is derived from property and sales taxes, not income taxes. In any case, local income taxes have nothing to do with the Feds. They are set locally. Bush's federal taxing policies may be a mess but its not really at issue here. I am not really sure what gov't policy(ies) exactly you think drives up prices in an area.

I've been bitchin about Bush since he was elected. It's built into my vocabulary. I'm not sure what I was getting at either. It's Bush syndrome.

Should the city leave it zoned as non-residential so an expensive neighborhood is not created but rather left for what? How can the city zone land for residential but only at a certain end price to the resident?

You are stating it in a black and white argument of "residential or not residential". Pulling away from the Far West Side and looking at Atlantic Yards, the area south of Atlantic Avenue is residential and is (was) fully occupied. Looking at that area, the zoning and development becomes an argument of what came first the chicken or the egg. Rezoning or Ratner Plan.

It seems we should let the market set the prices for affordability for folks like me, who might like to live in the city, but can't because of supply and demand. Yet, we have Bruce Ratner who wants some parcels of land that he can't seem to affford, because he hasn't made an offer that has moved the owner's to sell. In HIS case, the market means nothing. We simply seize the property and reimburse at a rate arbitrarily set. So, government policy sets the precedent that small owners and buyers pay market rates, big developers get property at drastically underpriced rates.

The first few people who sold to Ratner got twice what they paid. That was a good deal. As those properties were bought up, the "free market" would dictate that the properties now remaining privately owned (i.e. not owned by Ratner) would be soaring in value. Instead, the government is REGULATING the market forces - "negatiing" them is more accurate - because the prices would be too exhorbitant to pay at true market rates.

I am interested to hear your suggestions as to what the city can do policy wise to change the market in Manhattan. What "public" policy that is currently in place has to be removed that is not serving the city well?

I'm not quite sure. I assume that a city with one of the largest administrative budgets in the world would have policy experts addressing these things. Instead, government addresses big business interests and non-profits and NGOs address human needs.

Your question is difficult because you asK what policies are not serving the "city" well. However, I think we have experienced a complete disconnect at all levels of government to the citizen. I think the "city" is something unto itself - not necessarily connected to the citizenry. In NYC and NY State, so much that hasn't yet been privatized has been "authoritized" (i.e. placed under the auspices of independent organizations led and controlled by political appointees and business interests). For instance, subway service and fare hikes were the citizens priority. Bloomberg focused on the Jets Stadium. Affordable housing was a citizen priority. Bloomberg focused on the Olympics. I am being a bit facetious, but it is emblematic.

Again, what policy can be instituted to keep property prices low in an area where the rich are willing to pay a premium.

Tell me someplace that the "rich" would not ultimately own, given the chance. The goal of the rich is to get richer. Real Estate is a finite commodity. This is why we are seeing programs to preserve open land. The problem is that the skyrocketing incomes of the wealthy and, even more disconcerting, the tiny percentile of super-super rich puts everyone at risk of being beholden to "market forces" controlled by the few. If wealth were more evenly and equitably distributed, these issues would not be so alarming. The rapidly growing disparity elevating the rich further and further into the stratosphere is what makes the idea of "free market" and "market rates" almost laughable references.

It seems to me that there are huge amounts of people that want to live in Manhattan in every income bracket. The rich are willing to pay for it. Those who can't afford it want the city to somehow make it so they can afford it. Even if the city could (I don't see how they can) at what point do they choose to make it affordable for? $10,000 a year, $50,000?

Although there are huge amounts of people in every income bracket wanting to live here, they aren't. Manhattan is working its way toward becoming a gated community in and of itself - arranged by our government and paid for with our taxes. Everyone is welcome to come into the ciity to make the businesses run that make the rich richer (as salaries shrink, raises evaporate and CEOs get bonuses for both meeing expectations and falling on their face). The city was ready to spend $300M on the platform over the west side yards for the Jets. That has fallen through. Where is that money now? They aren't spending it on the Jets, so let's do something with it. You can bet an argument to use the $300M to develop a strictly mid-income residential project (for incomes over $60K and under $150K - [arbitrary numbers]) along the Hudson waterfront would be viewed with contempt. Hell, an argument to use it for anything other than the Jets would be met with contempt.

It seems there is always money for economic development (i.e. corporate give aways), but we always "just don't have the money" for human development (e.g. affordable housing subsidies). We are at a time in history where the two "developments" are poised toward mutually beneficial ends.

Just as a matter of disclosure: I'm not arguing from a point of someone starving. I live in one of the most affluent areas of Brooklyn and all of NYC. I have a healthy household income. I have a very nice home others might envy. I just think these arguments that "if you can't afford it, leave" are callous and fed by crap policy.

JMGarcia

June 27th, 2005, 02:03 PM

Well, now that I've recovered from my weekend....

You make a number of good arguments both for the reasons why NY is so expensive and also for why it can't really be helped in many ways.

I would like to comment that I think a huge part of the problem is that there is so much bureaucracy, corruption, and in general hoops to jump through in NY that the price of all that is passed on to the eventual end user both in higher prices and in higher taxes to support the huge city bureaucracy that deals with these things.

Both commerical and residential development in Manhattan is exceedingly expensive to develop. I can't really say the one or the other is being highly subsidized.

$300 million is a lot for the Jets for sure but at least its a one time give away compared to the same amount spent annually on city programs and bureaucrats that do nothing useful in many cases other than drive up costs (and hence prices) and spend an inordinate amount on just justifying their own existence. The happy balance between uncorrupt oversight and cost is way out of whack here.

Finally, I do not think NY is really any special case. Virtually ever popular world city where it desirable to live has very expensive real estate either for purchase or rent in the most desirable areas. It seems no one anywhere has been able to make a policy of providing housing that anyone can afford in the most popular areas.

While making Manhattan affordable for anyone who wants to live there is a laudable goal, I just do not think there is really anything that can be done to make it so. As long as there are more people who want to live on the island than there are available units I can't see it happening.

The only statistics I have ever seen where affordability has been improved in a popular city center has come from abolishing rent control. That's completely counter-intuitive and is really a non-starter here IMO.

If you want to talk about pet peeves and NY real estate (remembering I'm not from here originally) I have always been appalled that certain individuals based on criteria I have yet to devine, somehow get public subsidies, rent controlled units, insider prices or what have you to live in some of the most sought after places in the city. It ultimately seems unfair that tax dollars are used on this as it is unfair that corporations get subsidized.

ryan

July 28th, 2005, 11:18 PM

All Rise, Archpaper.com
(http://www.archpaper.com/feature_articles/13_05_all_rise.html)
New Yorkers have always been real-estate obsessed, and as housing price records are broken on what seems like a weekly basis, the conventional wisdom is that everyone should get in while they still can—it’s not a bubble, it’s New York City. There is logic to the sentiment, of course: While the space is finite, the demand doesn’t appear to be.

There are plenty of more concrete and measurable reasons, too, for such widespread interest in the real estate market, from still-reasonable interest rates to a noticeably development-friendly climate. The Bloomberg Administration has been more proactive about rezoning neighborhoods in all five boroughs than any in recent memory: West Chelsea, the Hudson Yards, Downtown Brooklyn, and the Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront will all become significantly denser over the next decade.

The development process has also become more transparent. According to Laura Wolf-Powers, urban planning chair at the Pratt Institute (and a regular contributor to AN), there are also some institutional reasons. “New York is seen as development friendly right now,” she said, explaining that beyond the highly publicized rezoning initiative the Department of City Planning has championed along the Williamsburg waterfront and scuffle over the future of the Hudson Yards, quieter changes have taken place that make it easier for newcomers to get into development.

“Under the Bloomberg Administration, the Department of Buildings has basically moved fromm the 19th to the 21st century, so it is much easier to pull permits. There is a new website [www.nyc.gov/html/dob] (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob%5D) where all that information is accessible. It used to seem like an insider’s game, in which you had to know somebody, or pay expediters, but that has changed.”

All of these forces—both large and small, based on economics or just gut instinct and crossed fingers—are adding up to what looks like a new environment for development in New York. Here’s a look at some of the new buildings that are reshaping neighborhoods all over the city.

Lots of pics in a run down of projects (http://www.archpaper.com/feature_articles/13_05_all_rise.html)

Derek2k3

July 29th, 2005, 12:03 AM

I was just about to post that. lol
Some really nice residential buildings are rising.

NoyokA

July 29th, 2005, 12:13 AM

I particularly like these two buildings:

High Line 519
Location: 519 West 23rd Street
Developer: Sleepy Hudson
Architect(s): ROY Co.
Consultant(s): ABR Construction
Size: 11 floors, 11 units, 18,600 sq. ft.
Completion (est.): Spring 2006

http://www.archpaper.com/images/feature_13_05/developers_08.jpg

The first ground-up project for the new development company Sleepy Hudson, this floor-through condo project on a 25-foot-wide lot is nearly adjacent to the High Line. The east wall of the building, facing the elevated tracks, is sheathed in wood and punctured by a small number of windows. Curved metal scrims on the south and north facades function as balustrades and balconies, respectively.

Blue at 105 Norfolk Street
Location: 105 Norfolk Street
Developer: John Carson and Angelo Cosentini
Architect(s): Bernard Tschumi Architects with SLCE Architects
Consultant(s): Israel Berger & Associates, Thornton Thomasetti, Ettinger Engineers
Size: 16 floors, 32 units, 60,000 sq. ft.
Completion (est.): 2006
Budget: $18 million

http://www.archpaper.com/images/feature_13_05/developers_21.jpg

The irregular form of this building is due in part to a series of site restrictions: The developers purchased the air rights to the building next door so that they could build over it, but zoning regulations do not permit the insertion of a column within the neighboring commercial space, so the architects had to cantilever the upper floors out over the adjacent building. The upper levels taper back because of setback requirements.

pianoman11686

July 29th, 2005, 12:26 AM

They're missing one biggie: 80 South Street.

NYguy

September 8th, 2005, 10:05 AM

NY PRESS

CITY IN THE WILDERNESS
After four years of barren Ground Zero, New York needs a new Moses.

By Harry Siegel

"Those who can, build," master builder Robert Moses once said. "Those who can't, criticize."

By that measure, the 9/11 terrorists were the biggest critics New York has ever encountered.Every act of destruction, though, leaves behind a germ of renewal. New Orleans will eventually have a chance to re-envision itself as America's first twenty-first century city. In much the same fashion, the destruction of the Trade Center offered New York a chance to re-imagine an already fading Lower Manhattan and, by extension, the city as a whole.

Four years after the towers fell, though, the footprints are still just that: reminders of what once was, not the foundation of anything new. World War II was won in less time.

Over that same period, a staggering number of development plans have been pursued and, for the most part, abandoned. The Second Avenue subway has been a pipe dream for nearly a decade. The Cross-Harbor Tunnel that would take millions of gas-guzzling trucks off of the city's roads fell victim to election-year politics, as Bloomberg withdrew his support for the plan, which had already languished for 80 years. Brooklyn's ports and piers have been neglected almost as long. The Hudson River Park may be lovely, but it represents a missed economic opportunity in a city that hasn't had a significant new economic sector in 60 years. The paired Jets Stadium and Olympics bid went nowhere; nor did plans to connect Grand Central's Metro North trains and Atlantic Avenue's Long Island Railroad trains to lower Manhattan.

A quarter century after the West Side Highway collapsed, its still been only partially reconstructed. (The city bizarrely turned down ample federal funding, which then wound up in Boston.) Control over New York's trains remains in the hands of the politically insulated bureaucrats of the MTA. The city's airports are at the mercy of the famously self-serving Port Authority, whose dirt-cheap leases Bloomberg just renewed for another 45 years.

And we still don't have public toilets (excluding, of course, city streets), despite a French company's proposal to build them for free—even though everyone wants either Freedom bidets or the chance to shit on something French.

Some of these failed proposals were good ideas; others were not. But none was considered in terms of the city as a whole, or in terms of other possible projects.

The destruction of 9/11 placed the city's already aging and inadequate infrastructure back on center stage for the first time since the fall of Robert Moses 35 years ago. Here was our chance to again plan for the whole city, not merely consider whatever groups yell the loudest.

It's time for a new Robert Moses (circa 1940): someone who can see the separate development proposals as anything but separate, since they are, in fact, part of the economic web that weaves Ground Zero to Great Neck, East New York to the East Side.

Before Moses, New York State had a modest park system; when he left, the state had 2,567,256 acres. Over nearly 45 years he built 658 playgrounds in New York City, 416 miles of parkways and 13 bridges.

Since then, we've built almost nothing.

What is it about New York's interest group politics and feuding governments that gave rise to a Moses in the first place? And why hasn't the city built so little since his fall?

Part of the problem was Moses himself. He was a nasty son-of-a-bitch, perfectly happy to screw the little guy who stood in the way of his grand projects. Eventually, Moses, who at one point held twelve city and state jobs (but never held elected office and was crushed in how one run for governor), came to believe his own massive hype. The powerbroker was more than willing to displace ordinary people who got in the way of his public works projects. "If the ends don't justify the means," he asked, "what does?"

It's a good question, especially in a city like ours, where little gets built and no one—certainly not the mayor or his Democratic rivals—has offered a city-sized vision.

Bloomberg's response to 9/11 was telling. Instead of working to rebuild Downtown, which would have placed him in Giuliani's shadow, he went along with Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, a fellow nasal Bostonian, who'd been trying to bring the Olympics to New York for years. The Observer once called his team "a hundred-headed Robert Moses... frustrated by decades of political paralysis and determined to resuscitate the long-vanished art of getting things built on a grand scale with brute political force."

But this proved optimistic, as Doctoroff and company were shived by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who wasn't going to let a stadium go up on the Far West Side before anything went up at Ground Zero, which is in his district. Doctoroff also placed his fate in the hands of the uber-bureaucrats of the IOC— something Moses never would have done—who rejected the city's bid, quite possibly because of Silver's rejection of the stadium plan.

It was during the fight to win support for that stadium that the NYPD's concerns over the design of the Freedom Tower were overlooked by City Hall. Their eyes were watching the West Side. Nobody was looking at the overall picture.

How will the new stadium in Queens affect Bruce Ratner's plans to build a stadium in Brooklyn for the Nets basketball team? Will there still be a need to expand the Javitz Center? Can anyone at City Hall answer these questions?

In many ways, things are still as they were when Moses dominated the scene. Bond financing by semi-public entities still remove many decisions from the vagaries—and the accountability—of politics. Federal funding and its accompanying mandates still shape most projects. Americans still love their cars.

In a deeply politicized city where few vote, neighborhood and other interest groups have little power to build, but much to criticize and veto. The Universal Land Review Process (better know as the Ulurp), mandates a half year of review and three public hearings before anything much can be built, which prevents experts, hacks or politicians from doing much of anything very quickly, and forces them to pay at least lip service to public participation. Many of these changes were a direct response to Moses' later excesses.

It's barely remembered now that Moses rose to power as a something of a reformer, with the help of his counter-machine of contractors, suppliers and anti-Tammany activists. Unlike the present reformers, he spent his time building, not merely criticizing.

I'm a Jane Jacobs-sort myself: I want cohesive neighborhoods, not super highways through the Village. But we can't continue to go forward in the same haphazard, half-assed fashion. Given the mayoral candidates, there seems to me no alternative—we need a new master planner. Let's hope it doesn't take another terror strike—or a slow decent into fiscal and structural insolvency—to get us there.

NYguy

September 8th, 2005, 10:07 AM

How will the new stadium in Queens affect Bruce Ratner's plans to build a stadium in Brooklyn for the Nets basketball team?

That article had some valid questions, but I'm not sure how a baseball stadium in Queens directly relates to the basketball arena in Brooklyn, other than city contributions..

lofter1

September 8th, 2005, 11:23 AM

^ The article was a hodge-podge of complaints with very little basis and a half-witted sense of missed opportunities. This guy seems still to be crying over the unbuilt Westway and amazingly tries to claim that there has been little economic benefit from Hudson River Park ("The Hudson River Park may be lovely, but it represents a missed economic opportunity in a city that hasn't had a significant new economic sector in 60 years"). Anyone with a brain knows that the housing boom along the Hudson is in direct relation to HRP.

A new Moses? Never gonna happen. IMO this is typical post 9/11 yearning for a Big Daddy-type of leader who controls all.

infoshare

September 13th, 2005, 11:03 AM

I stood at the hudson rivers edge at about chambers st. (stuyvasant school) and looked south at the waters edge retaining wall that is the begining of Battery Park City. From that point southward to casttle clinton BPC comprises the most beautyfull waterfront (park/commercial) development in NYC.

I then imagained the northern section of BPC "stretched" northward to the George Washington Bridge. Then I visualized a tunnel unerneath the ten mile stretch of BPC where the now surface HHparkway would disappear.

That is what westway would have been. What we dont (see) know does hurt us. I believe the economists term is "opportunity cost" - Thanks Jane Jacobs, Benstock. And... The striped bass would still be swimming these waters to boot.

elfgam

September 15th, 2005, 11:59 AM

You guys are focusing on the wrong things and again missing the point. By calling for a new Robert Moses, the article is not asking for someone to finally push through the Lower Manhattan Expressway or for someone to finally blow up the rest ofthe Bronx. What the article is asking for is a VISION of the same totality and throroughness that his had.

Like it or not, Robert Moses had a vision -- he had a project for the city which he got done. The bridges, the highways, the parks, the (yikes) affordable housing, the airports, the power grid were all his doing. This city, and this state, got where they are today because they thought bigger sooner that anyone else (the eerie canal, the train lines, the aqueducts, the sewage system, the public school). No-one today has vision. All the great projects we have languish, and no comprehensive plan exists. Sure little things are talked about, like a new suway station here, or the penn station there... but they take forever, and half the time they get killed. It's the old bundle of sticks metaphor: by themselves easy to cut and break but together a real package.

We need a true leader, not just in terms of the power they wield, but in terms of the totality of their vision. A truly comprehensive understanding of the entire metro-area and the vastness of any undertaking required to improve it.

infoshare

September 15th, 2005, 03:13 PM

The reason nothing great has been built in NYC in recent years is not a lack of vision or ambition, its simply NIMBY's and a lack of foresight from the NYC political machine.

Yes, true. Our City Government lacks the "political will" to get back to the basics of providing core public sector services (pipes,pavement & policing) nothing more - as it once did in this town.

Why, because there is no power/profit in letting the privite sector do what it does best (a privite sector that built this city -up untill about 20 years ago) so our current political leaders tie thier hands. Only when they pay-to-play do the beaucratic walls come down.

Then come forth the patronage bounty; Liberty bonds, tax abatements, sweethart land deals.....

Our city gov is as corrupt as was Tammany Hall (Boss Tweed). The only diff is that the beaucratic walls (deliberate complexity - obfuscation)
make it difficult for the average citizen to see/understand just what is "really going on".

infoshare

September 18th, 2005, 09:28 PM

Why are we all shut out? This process destroys the hopes of small business and minority business owners. It is not right and it is why the hundreds of millions of dollars that this state does in business are not falling into the hands of a BULK of the state's citizens. Give us a chance too. Offer this up to those who have been shut out for decades in this state. Because if you don't, I say good luck in getting elected, your campaign contributors and their community can only get you so many votes. You still need us and soon enough we won’t vote for you despite all the money you spend trying to brainwash us.

NYguy

September 19th, 2005, 09:26 AM

I stood at the hudson rivers edge at about chambers st. (stuyvasant school) and looked south at the waters edge retaining wall that is the begining of Battery Park City. From that point southward to casttle clinton BPC comprises the most beautyfull waterfront (park/commercial) development in NYC.

I then imagained the northern section of BPC "stretched" northward to the George Washington Bridge. Then I visualized a tunnel unerneath the ten mile stretch of BPC where the now surface HHparkway would disappear.

That is what westway would have been.

I agree. That's not to say the HRP is not welcome, its just a scaled back version of what could have been. There's no way you could say the new developments along the Hudson wouldn't have happened had Westway been built.

NYguy

September 19th, 2005, 09:37 AM

Like it or not, Robert Moses had a vision -- he had a project for the city which he got done.

He got things done. Exactly. That's mostly what's missing today.

The bridges, the highways, the parks, the (yikes) affordable housing, the airports, the power grid were all his doing. This city, and this state, got where they are today because they thought bigger sooner that anyone else (the eerie canal, the train lines, the aqueducts, the sewage system, the public school). No-one today has vision.

As soon as anyone comes up with a vision for a development or "redevelopment", the NIMBY groups start foaming at the mouth about "rich developers" and "affordable housing" and "more traffic". And then there's the NYC approval process. I think Bloomberg has vision for NY's future on the Westside, but that's a decade or more from becoming anything real. When Guiliani was mayor, he had the will and determination to get things done. But I don't recall any citywide initiatives (other than Bloomberg's housing) that could have changed the city on the scale of Moses.

We do need someone in a position of power who can make firm and swift decisions, then act on them. The "people" will never all agree on what should or shouldn't be built and where. It's why we have elected officials. Sometimes one or a handfull of people get to decide what's best for the millions. Only then can things really get done.

BrooklynRider

September 19th, 2005, 11:33 AM

True about Giuliani, but he was focused on intimidating poor people and punishing dissenters. His two big visions were the Single A League ballparks in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Whoopdee-do! What a visionary.

infoshare

September 20th, 2005, 10:02 AM

[QUOTE=NYguy]He got things done. Exactly. That's mostly what's missing today.

Yes to the above quote - The fight against NIMBYism in NY must continue.

As soon as anyone comes up with a vision for a development or "redevelopment", the NIMBY groups start foaming at the mouth about "rich developers" and "affordable housing" and "more traffic".

By T.Dalrymple - "The Triumph of Reason"
Halfway through my own reply, however, I suddenly became bored. Why do I spend so much time arguing against such obvious rubbish, which should be both self-refuting and auto-satirizing the moment someone utters it? Why not just go and read a good book?

The problem is that nonsense can and does go by default. It wins the argument by sheer persistence, by inexhaustible re-iteration, by staying at the meeting when everyone else has gone home, by monomania, by boring people into submission and indifference. And the reward of monomania? Power.

TomAuch

September 22nd, 2005, 02:15 AM

The issue of "Design by Committee" vs. having another Moses is complex. While I don't want someone with the power to obliterate neighborhoods at will (how would you like it if someone could take your residence without compensation or consent?) I do want someone who can get project moving quickly.

He got things done. Exactly. That's mostly what's missing today.

As soon as anyone comes up with a vision for a development or "redevelopment", the NIMBY groups start foaming at the mouth about "rich developers" and "affordable housing" and "more traffic". And then there's the NYC approval process. I think Bloomberg has vision for NY's future on the Westside, but that's a decade or more from becoming anything real. When Guiliani was mayor, he had the will and determination to get things done. But I don't recall any citywide initiatives (other than Bloomberg's housing) that could have changed the city on the scale of Moses.

We do need someone in a position of power who can make firm and swift decisions, then act on them. The "people" will never all agree on what should or shouldn't be built and where. It's why we have elected officials. Sometimes one or a handfull of people get to decide what's best for the millions. Only then can things really get done.

BrooklynRider

September 22nd, 2005, 11:25 AM

NY State has Charles Gargano and NYC has Dan Doctoroff if they want something to happen, it happens.

The issue being faced is not "NIMBY-ism" that never existed before, but more efficient communication (Internet) and better education on the long-term implication of what certain types of developments do to neighborhoods. The Far West Side is the best example, where the city's interest of building a stadium and expanding the convention center would destroy the existing neighborhood (neighborhood being defined as those people presently residing there, long-term and short-term). The neighborhood itself faces exstinction within the forecast of the plan.

Atlantic Yards is similar. Sure we need housing, but we need affordable energy too. I suppose that if the city wanted to build a nuclear reactor over Atlantic Yards to drive down energy costs all the "anti-NIMBY" people here would fully support the project?

You're all anti-NIMBY until it's YOUR neighborhood. Then, its a different story with lots of footnotes and caveats. And, of course, we who don't live in the neighborhood just wouldn't and couldn't understand.

ZippyTheChimp

September 22nd, 2005, 12:21 PM

Elfgam spoke of it, but some others are missing the point of what is not getting built in NY today. Most of the posts speak of real estate developments, but they are not the sort of broad-based projects that a city undertakes to evolve. At any rate, these projects get built, and whether they are on this site or that, or how tall, does little to fundamentally change the operation of the city.

Even Westway was not a public works project; it was a huge real estate development. The civic aspect of added parkland was false, because the new real estate acreage was greater than the new parkland. And the underground interstate as transportation infrastructure was ridiculous. A high speed roadway would have had far fewer exits to the rest of Manhattan, and the whole thing would have bottlenecked at the 2-lane Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. If Robert Moses were alive today and had to choose, I think he would have built airport access before Westway.

Although they get opposition from NIMBYs, most public-works projects get cancelled or stalled because of government inaction. There was community opposition to the water filtration plant in the Bronx, but it is going forward anyway, not because NIMBYs gave up, but because the city wanted to avoid federal fines.

Why have these projects been stalled for years (decades)?
WTC
Penn Station
East Side Access
Region Access
SAS
JFK rail link
Brooklyn Bridge Park

The big anomaly is Water Tunnel #3. It continues toward completion, despite the fact that there is no political capital attached to it.

pianoman11686

January 2nd, 2007, 12:53 AM

Wave of Development, Cleared for Takeoff

By SAM ROBERTS
Published: January 1, 2007

City, state and federal agencies granted final approvals last month to a half-dozen wide-ranging projects in a political aligning of the stars that will promote New York City’s most ambitious economic development agenda in decades.

Approval or financing was given to a Second Avenue subway; an extension of the Flushing Line to the Far West Side; a spur to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal; financing for tens of thousands of apartments for low- and moderate-income residents; the Atlantic Yards complex near Downtown Brooklyn, which includes a new home for the basketball Nets; and even the bus-stop shelters and public toilets that New Yorkers and visitors have demanded for years.

Some of the approvals were prompted by legal deadlines and last-minute efforts by departing Pataki administration officials — including Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation; Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and the governor himself — to stake out their legacy.

But two more enduring forces also converged: the beginning of the last 1,000 days of the Bloomberg administration, and a climate that some urban planners suggest signals at least a lull in the nearly half-century backlash against the bulldozer diplomacy of Robert Moses.

“It’s a pretty amazing list,” said Robert D. Yaro, the president of the Regional Plan Association, a group that studies transportation and development issues. “It’s the Bloomberg administration pushing hard. There’s a pro-growth, long-range theme behind all this.”

Kenneth T. Jackson, the Columbia University urban historian, said that Mr. Bloomberg’s speech in December outlining the challenges posed by a growing population “signaled that New York had to fight for its place at the table, that real estate and commercial rents and housing prices are getting out of hand. The only way the city can prosper is to make that more reasonable and the only way to do that is to increase the supply.

“I think they’re beginning to move,” Professor Jackson said.

In the months ahead, the Bloomberg administration’s development agenda includes rezoning in Harlem as well as in Jamaica and Willets Point in Queens. The administration also wants to make another effort to gain approval for the transformation of the James A. Farley general post office building in Midtown Manhattan into a commuter rail hub called Moynihan Station — one proposal that appears to be in political limbo.

“After 9/11, a spirit of cooperation — not perfect — prevailed that enabled people to aim farther than they had in decades,” said Daniel L. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development, who was instrumental in winning many of the approvals. “The mayor really encouraged that kind of thinking — repositioning New York City’s economy to compete with other cities in the 21st century.”

Several of the approved projects still face court challenges. Some others are bound to raise concerns over displacement and congestion. And the promise of a Second Avenue subway has been dangled before skeptical New Yorkers for nearly 80 years. But even if some projects are delayed, the others would change the city’s face and, arguably, help fend off competition from New Jersey and from other world capitals.

“I think you probably would have to go back to the late 1930s to see anything like that,” Mr. Doctoroff said. “I don’t think any mayor has had an agenda like this, not since La Guardia.”

On Dec. 6, the city sold $2 billion in bonds to extend the No. 7 subway line 1.1 miles west and then south from Times Square to 11th Avenue and 34th Street to help transform the largely fallow Far West Side.

On Dec. 18, the federal government agreed to grant $2.6 billion to link Long Island Rail Road commuters directly to the East Side of Manhattan and $693 million for the Second Avenue subway from 96th to 63rd Streets.

On Dec. 19, Mr. Pataki presided over the installation of the first two huge steel columns to mark the perimeter of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site.

The same day, Mr. Bloomberg announced the installation of the first 24 of 3,300 bus-stop shelters by a company that will also replace 330 newsstands and install and operate 20 public toilets. The “street furniture” will help pay for the city’s tourism campaign.

On Dec. 20, the City Council, in a compromise supported by the mayor, voted to overhaul a tax break to induce developers to build tens of thousands of apartments for New Yorkers making less than 80 percent of the median household income, or $56,720 for a family of four.

That day, a state oversight board gave final approval to the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, a mostly residential complex with a basketball arena, offices and retail space near Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.

In addition, new stadiums are being built for the Yankees and the Mets.

Brad Lander, the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, a planning group, said: “My guess is, we are only just now settling into the general sense that the city’s growth and development are long-term trends, not a short-time, business-cycle flash.”

Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, said that the city, bolstered by a robust economy, was trying to meet pent-up demand.

“Say what you want about the scope and size of development,” he added, “the projects that are being approved are more sensitive to the current communities and neighborhoods or to creating new ones — like the new Downtown Brooklyn — than Moses ever was.”

Moreover, Mr. Dadey said, “the community boards no longer have the sway they once did over stopping local projects,” and some local groups are even supporting development — “trying to encourage it responsibly in ways that benefit a greater number of people.”

In “The Power Broker,” Robert A. Caro in 1974 wrote that without the approval of Robert Moses, who oversaw virtually all public works in New York until he was eased out in 1968, the city was “utterly unable” to build anything.

Mr. Caro said in an interview that he, too, was struck by the plethora of projects approved in December.

“Does this alignment of stars show that this is may be a problem that democracy can solve?” he said. “For the first time in 40 years, I’m hopeful.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

ablarc

January 2nd, 2007, 08:33 AM

...New York City’s most ambitious economic development agenda in decades.
Most of this is real progress by today's yardstick. But:

an extension of the Flushing Line to the Far West Side
...is actually the addition ...for the foreseeable future... of ...one station (clap yo' hands, chillun!). And:

...20 public toilets...
Can you imagine the frustration and milling around these will engender as folks shuck their reliance on Starbuck's?

Why not 200?

build tens of thousands of apartments for New Yorkers making less than 80 percent of the median household income, or $56,720 for a family of four.
And if you work your way to higher prosperity than this, will they reward you by yanking your subsidy or making you move?

Atlantic Yards project, a mostly residential complex
Why, when everyone's talking about setting up Brooklyn to compete with Jersey City for class B office space? Isn't "mostly residential" what you find in the projects? Will this be one of those --only styled up a bit?

“For the first time in 40 years, I’m hopeful.”
Me too --but modestly.

BrooklynRider

January 2nd, 2007, 11:17 AM

antinimby

January 2nd, 2007, 11:09 PM

Why shouldn't we say it was NIMBYs?

If it is NIMBYs, then it is NIMBYs.

If it is not, then it isn't.

I think we all here will be able to discern which are the factors.

NYguy

January 3rd, 2007, 02:32 AM

Why, when everyone's talking about setting up Brooklyn to compete with Jersey City for class B office space? Isn't "mostly residential" what you find in the projects?

Even in Downtown Brooklyn, where the city has put in special zoning for office space, it seems the market calls for more residential (see various threads). Just one of many reasons Ratners plans for for office space were greatly reduced.

NYguy

January 3rd, 2007, 02:51 AM

Well, I can't complain with the way you parsed that out. I agree with every point. Now, let's see if the ambition can equate into realization. Let's revisit this agenda in one year and see what is and isn't happening (and let's try to refrain from using the all too easy "NIMBY" arhuments for lack of progress.)

Only the NIMBYs have the power to stand in the way of such progress, so if something is stalled (in court for example), it will most likely be due to the NIMBYs. Meanwhile, Spitzer wants to start off running and return New York to its "glory days". We'll judge by what we see, but I believe New York is already moving in that direction.

We have so many developments that will change the "face" of the City as we know it, some are just lost in the background.

For example, in any city it would be enough to get one major arena or stadium under construction. But no, New York has to get two major stadiums under construction, and two new arenas to follow soon (that doesn't include what's going on in Jersey). In any city, the redevelopment of the WTC would be a project of epic proportions. But already we're looking at a project of similar scale (and likely height) at the MSG/Penn Station site. Speaking of Penn Station, not only will the city get a new train hall in the Farley building, but there'll be a renovated and opened up main hall accross the street, giving us Moynihan east and west. As an added bonus, we get Calatrava's beautifully designed PATH terminal Downtown (and they're throwing in the Fulton St transit center just for kicks). Real subway expansion hasn't been seen in decades, but the 2nd Ave line and extension of the 7 are underway. LIRR commuters will finally have direct access to the Eastside, via Grand Central. Museums are expanding or building new homes. Even the city's waterfronts are being opened up with new parks and esplanades, giving New Yorkers and visitors alike access to one of the world's greatest waterfronts (NY has more of it than any other city). Coney Island may be returning to its glory days. There are major housing developments planned or under construction. The desolate far West Side of Manhattan is coming to life. There are even signs of life for Far Rockaway.

The New York of this century is being born right before our eyes. Too many people want to keep us in the last century, but its inevitable that change must come.

lofter1

January 3rd, 2007, 10:44 AM

Only the NIMBYs have the power to stand in the way of such progress, so if something is stalled (in court for example), it will most likely be due to the NIMBYs.
That is just not true.

There is something called the "LAW".

If a developer wants to go beyond the bounds of what is allowed as of right then it is the law that restricts what can be done. To ascribe that to NIMBY-ism is incorrect -- unless you are saying that the law should be flouted.

pianoman11686

January 4th, 2007, 02:43 PM

Don't forget about frivolous lawsuits intended to delay construction.

lofter1

January 11th, 2007, 12:46 PM

"Bird's Eye View"

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Dynamicdezzy

January 11th, 2007, 03:23 PM

Only the NIMBYs have the power to stand in the way of such progress, so if something is stalled (in court for example), it will most likely be due to the NIMBYs. Meanwhile, Spitzer wants to start off running and return New York to its "glory days". We'll judge by what we see, but I believe New York is already moving in that direction.

We have so many developments that will change the "face" of the City as we know it, some are just lost in the background.

For example, in any city it would be enough to get one major arena or stadium under construction. But no, New York has to get two major stadiums under construction, and two new arenas to follow soon (that doesn't include what's going on in Jersey). In any city, the redevelopment of the WTC would be a project of epic proportions. But already we're looking at a project of similar scale (and likely height) at the MSG/Penn Station site. Speaking of Penn Station, not only will the city get a new train hall in the Farley building, but there'll be a renovated and opened up main hall accross the street, giving us Moynihan east and west. As an added bonus, we get Calatrava's beautifully designed PATH terminal Downtown (and they're throwing in the Fulton St transit center just for kicks). Real subway expansion hasn't been seen in decades, but the 2nd Ave line and extension of the 7 are underway. LIRR commuters will finally have direct access to the Eastside, via Grand Central. Museums are expanding or building new homes. Even the city's waterfronts are being opened up with new parks and esplanades, giving New Yorkers and visitors alike access to one of the world's greatest waterfronts (NY has more of it than any other city). Coney Island may be returning to its glory days. There are major housing developments planned or under construction. The desolate far West Side of Manhattan is coming to life. There are even signs of life for Far Rockaway.

The New York of this century is being born right before our eyes. Too many people want to keep us in the last century, but its inevitable that change must come.

It's crazy right???? The amount of projects (in the works) are going to definitely transform the city. It really is exciting. Most people probably don't see it as such when compared to lets say, Dubai. But we are not Dubai. We are an ESTABLISHED city. You can't compare the country, the economy, the work force, the cost..... It's easy to make something out of nothing. It becomes a lot harder to try to do the same in the middle of an established neighborhood. Even though I hate the fact that some of the towers in the atlantic yards project have been watered down, it's still better than what's there now. This project will be a stepping stone for something else down the line. I think people are really wanting "large" projects that will shape more than just a neighborhood; like a rail connection to staten island, or a newly built sunnyside yard "city," or an underground highway, etc. We can only wait for the next wave of "mega projects."